SS4 CURRANT. 



white may be procured from sowing the seeds, but they are 

 generally propagated by cuttings of the last year's wood, 

 which should be of sufficient length to form handsome 

 plants, with a clear stem, ten inches high ; these may be 

 planted immediately upon losing their leaves in Autumn, 

 or very early the ensuing Spring. 



The Currant will grow in almost every soil, but prospers 

 best in one loamy and rich. The best flavoured fruit is 

 produced from plants in an open situation, but they will 

 grow under the shades of walls or trees, and either as low 

 bushes, or trained as espaliers. They bear chiefly on spurs, 

 and 'on young wood, of from one to three years' growth, and 

 therefore, in pruning, most of the young wood should be cut 

 to within two or three buds of that where it originated. 

 After the plants are furnished with full heads, they produce 

 many superfluous and irregular shoots every Summer, 

 crowding the general bearers, so as to require regulating, 

 and curtailing, both in the young growth of the year, and in 

 older wood. 



The principal part of the work may be done in Winter, 

 or early in the Spring; but a preparatory part should be 

 performed in Summer, to eradicate suckers, and thin the 

 superfluous shoots of the year, where they are so crowded as 



to exclude the sun and air from the fruit. In training 



o 



espaliers and for standards, two branches are laid in n 

 horizontal direction along the bottom of the trellis, perhaps 

 half a foot from the surface of the earth, and the growth 

 from these of all upright shoots, which will admit of being 

 arranged at the distance of five or six inches of each olher, 

 is encouraged. Fan standards are sometimes trained with 

 the branches radiating from the crown of the stem. 



The black Currant, or Ribes nigrum, is common in moist 

 woods in Russia and Siberia ; its culture is similar to that 

 of the redj but as it is less apt to bear on spurs than on 

 young wood, the shoots should not be so much shortened 

 in this as in the other, 



Currant bushes will require to be planted at different 

 distances, according to the situation and mode of training, 

 &e. When planted in beds, borders, or squares, they 



