On the cultivation of the Currant. 325 



plants often become a prey to insects, which soon destroy 

 them. A fruit so generally admired for Its good qualities and 

 its many excellent uses, and so universally cultivated that 

 scarcely a garden exists in which it may not be found, should 

 not be so entirely neglected; for, like all other fruits and 

 plants, it is susceptible of improvement, and, had the same 

 attention been given to it that has been lavished upon the 

 gooseberry, we doubt not but that new varieties, far excelling 

 any we now possess, v/ould have been found in our gardens, 

 as conmion as the new and improved sorts of that fruit. 



In France the currant has long attracted attention, and, un- 

 til lately, has been much more highly esteemed than the goose- 

 berry. But the French horticulturists did not attempt any im- 

 provement in the varieties. The Dutch cultivators were the 

 first who seem to have paid particular attention to it; they 

 succeeded in giving a greater value to this friiit by the produc- 

 tion of seedlings, and it is from this source that the very best 

 varieties at present known have been spread over Europe and 

 America. 



The late Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., President of the 

 London Horticultural Society, called the attention of cultivators 

 to the currant, and he attempted the production of new varie- 

 ties from seed: a paper on the subject was read by him before 

 the London Horticultural Society, and subsequently published 

 in their Transactions. Three of Mr. Knight's seedlings are 

 at the present time found in the English catalogues. Mr. 

 Knight, in a letter written but a short period before his death, 

 lamented that the improvers of the gooseberry did not, in 

 preference, select the red currant. Reasoning from his ex- 

 tensive experience in the cultivation of fruits, he believed that 

 fruits which, in their unimproved state, are acid, first become 

 sweet and then insipid by improved cultivation, and through 

 successive varieties. To this he attributes the excellence of 

 the gooseberry, which he believed had been shown in nearly 

 its greatest perfection in the climate of England. The cur- 

 rant, he thought, might eventually become a very sweet fruit. 



It is well known that the accidental circumstances of soil, 

 situation, &c. in which the currant has been grown, have been 

 the means of so altering the appearance and character of the 

 fruit, that new names have been given to such as have been 

 found in a superior state of growth, and some of the sorts are 

 known under at least half a dozen synonymous terms. We 



