CURRANTS GATHERING AX/) KEEPING. , 6j 



4. Common salt, 5 cwt. per acre, 3* pounds per rod, 2 ounces per square yard in li^ht 

 soils ; in medium-textured soils 2 to 3 cwt. is a sufficient dressing per acre. Apply in 

 March. 



Mulching. Because currants are easily grown, they are apt to be neglected in poor 

 soils. This is a great mistake. Liberal treatment pays at least 50 per cent. A light 

 mulch of any coarse manure, lawn mowings, or rough vegetable matter, applied after 

 the fruit is set, greatly aids the crop, and if supplemented by two or three generous 

 applications of liquid manure, the berries will be doubled in size in dry sites and 

 seasons. 



Thinning the Fruit. This is seldom practised, but to secure extra-fine produce, 

 a selection should be made of the largest and most evenly set bunches directly the 

 flowering is over, cutting away the rest with scissors, and leaving each bunch clear of 



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its neighbour. This secures, with high culture, clusters of fruit far beyond the normal 

 size, evenly coloured and possessed of the most juice and the highest finish and flavour. 

 The practice is commended to those desiring high-class fruit for dessert and exhibition, 

 but liquid manure must not be applied after the fruit commences colouring. 



Protecting the Crop. Blackbirds and thrushes must be kept at bay by placing 

 netting over the bushes ; herring nets suffice for these birds, but pilchard nets are 

 necessary to exclude the smaller birds, one of the greatest pilferers being the redbreast ; 

 the protection must be applied to bushes before the fruit changes colour for ripening. 



Gathering the Fruit. Though inadvisable to gather fruit before it is ripe, it is 

 necessary in wet seasons to secure currants at every favourable opportunity, for a few 

 days' continued wet may spoil a whole crop by the earliest ripe berries decaying and 

 spoiling the rest of the fruit on the spur. Gathering, however, ought not to be done 

 when the fruit is wet. Dessert fruit must of necessity sometimes be gathered wet, but 

 it ought to be spread in a room to dry before sending it to table. 



Keeping the Fruit. This is practised largely in private gardens with red and white 

 currants. The fruit keeps the longest on north walls, but is there ill-flavoured. It 

 hangs well on low walls with east aspects when protected. Where wasps and blue- 

 bottle flies abound hexagon netting must be used. This, kept at a distance from the 

 currants, throws off the rain at the side, and a coping-board to a wall or oiled calico 

 over cordon trees shields them from wet from above, this dryness and the free access of 

 air insuring a supply of fruit to a late period. Covering bushes with clean Archangel 

 mats is a very old and very bad practice as regards the bushes, but excellent in respect 



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