HORTICULTURE 253 



Cultivation. The surface soil should be well stirred and heavily 

 manured. Mulching may be practiced with these fruits to better 

 advantage than with any other. 



Pruning. (a) Pruning is done to renew the old and weak wood 

 and to improve the size of the fruit. (6) To get increased size in 

 gooseberries the American sorts should have about one-half of the 

 new growth removed each year, (c) To get rid of borers, (d) 

 Pruning should be done when the plants are dormant. 



Fruit. The fruit varies much, both as to the size of each in- 

 dividual fruit and in the size of the bunches. The color of currants 

 may be red, white, black, or purple. The color of gooseberries varies 

 from a pale green to a deep red when ripe. 



Picking and Marketing. The currant is not as liable to injury 

 in picking as most other small fruits, but it requires, nevertheless, 

 considerable care to secure best results. Currants are generally pre- 

 ferred for jelly when a few green berries show on each bunch of 

 fruit. For table dessert use they should be fully ripened and of the 

 largest size. They are generally marketed in quart boxes, but in 

 some sections nine-pound baskets are preferred. The fairest method 

 of marketing the fruit is by the pound. Gooseberries are most in 

 demand when fully grown but perfectly green. 



Winter Protection. (a) Winter protection is sometimes given 

 by covering the branches of gooseberry bushes with earth or by laying 

 them on the ground and covering with mulch. (6) By tying the 

 tops of currants closely together for the winter. This prevents break- 

 age by snow crusts, ice, etc. (U. S. E. S. B. 178.) 



CRANBERRY. 



The small cranberry, V. oxy coccus Linn., is the Old World kind. 

 It is a slender, creeping plant, with short filiform stems four inches 

 to one foot long; leaves ovate, acute, or acuminate, a /4 inch long, 

 with revolute margins; pedicels 1 to 4, terminal; corolla deeply 4- 

 parted, the lobes reflexed; anthers exserted, with very long terminal 

 tubes ; berry red, globose, ^ to 1-3 inch in diameter, 4-loculed. It is 

 indigenous to sphagnum swamps in subarctic and Alpine regions of 

 both Europe and America. In the United States it is reported from 

 New England, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Micnigan, and the Pacific 

 Northwest. 



The large or American cranberry, V. macrocarpon Ait., is a 

 plant of low creeping habit, stems slender, elongated 1 to 4 feet, the 

 flowering branches ascending; leaves oblong or oval, obtuse or retuse, 

 1-3 to ^2 inch long, whitened beneath ; pedicels, several, axillary and 

 lateral ; berry, red or reddish globose or pyriform, 1-3 to 1 inch long. 

 The fruit of the cranberry is borne on short upright shoots of the 

 previous season's growth. The flowers are borne in the axils of the 

 leaves, one to three or four in a place, which gives the fruit^ the ap- 

 pearance of being distributed along the stem, a fact which is taken 

 advantage of in harvesting. The mechanical devices used for this 

 purpose are constructed so as to take advantage of this peculiarity. 



Structurally, both species of the cranberry are closely allied to 

 he so-called huckleberries. Botanically, they are classed merely as 



