Domestic J^otices. 351 



haps Mr. Russell or Mr. Haggerston, to whom you refer, may find 

 a leisure half hour to instruct tyro-amateurs as to watering (when 

 the vines are yjlanted inside or outside of the grapery,) syringing, 

 airing, protecting against mildew, thinning of the vines, pinching or 

 stopping the shoots, and pruning; describing the mode, whether 

 long, spur, or fan method. A drawing of a full bearing vine, just 

 before and after pruning, in the fall or winter, indicating all the su- 

 perfluous branches which are to be cut off, would best illustrate the 

 mode, but 1 am well aware that your subscribers cannot expect you 

 to incur the expense of such a drawing. What would it cost.'' I 

 also would beg leave to suggest, that the information sought for be 

 conveyed in the form of a brief monthly calendarial register. — Philo 

 Vitis, August 1, 1842. 



[If this should meet the eye of either of the intelligent gardeners 

 above named, we trust they will gratify our correspondent by 

 sending us a paper containing the desired information. We intend 

 to present such a paper in the course of the next volume, if we do 

 not in the present one. — Ed-I 



Large Currants. — A correspondent of the Central New York Farm- 

 er has sent the editor of that paper a basket of currants, which the ed- 

 itor pronounces the largest he ever saw. Astonishing as it may ap- 

 pear, he states that some of the berries measured one and three 

 quarters inches in circumference, and several one and a half; the 

 clusters were also large and fine. Mr. Berry, of Whiretone, who 

 raised these currants, states, that he sent them to the editor, merely 

 to show what a little cultivation will do towards improving this most 

 common and most neglected of fruits. The bushes are made to 

 grow in the form of trees: they are, in fact, small trees. In this 

 shape they bear five or six years, and sometimes longer. The 

 bushes are j)lanted at least six feet apart, and every spring or fall, 

 the new wood, which shoots out vigorously from the old branches, 

 should be cut off, with the exception of three or four joints. Mr. 

 Berry prefers fall pruning. By this method of pruning the fruit is 

 produced in rich heavy clusters upon all ])arts of the tree, even to 

 the extreme points of the branches, and does not dwindle away, as 

 in the common mode of no cultivation, into little, puny, pigeon-shot 

 berries, hanging upon solitary stems, in a wide waste of bush. — 

 {Cent. N. Y. Farmer.) [We recommend this notice to our read- 

 ers, in connection with our article on the currant, in a previous 

 page. — Ed.'\ 



Rosses Fhcenix Strawberry. — This is the name given to the new 

 strawberry which we noticed in a late number, (p. 270.) Mr. Wil- 

 son has thus named it on account of its having been twice nearly 

 lost. Mr. Ross, in a note appended to a figure and description of 

 the fruit in the Cultivator, states that it was raised from the Keen's 

 seedling, in June, 1836, at which time the seeds were sown in a box, 

 where the plants remained till the spring of 1837. At that time only 

 OJie plant was alive, owing to the severe frost. This having a singu- 

 lar round leaf, Mr. Ross was induced to plant it out in the garden- 

 where it grew rapidly, and made a number of runners during the 

 season. In 1839, it produced fruit, some of the berries of which 

 measured five and a half inches, and one six and a half inches, in 

 circumference. The variety is a strong grower, produces large 



