Vo. 6. Agricultural Exhibitions. — Cultivation of the Currant. 



187 



vhom I know I value, more than he can; 

 mt this only goes to prove the fallacy of the 

 ystem which I am combating - ; for we find 

 hat although they are "men selected from 

 be country round ; chosen on account of 

 heir long experience; honest men of good 

 ndgment, and not afraid to exercise it ; and 

 /hose characters for veracity, will never 

 uifer from the insinuations of Z ;" yet they 

 re sure to disappoint the hopes of unsuc- 

 essful candidates ; who, then, as we have 

 een,are too apt to feel themselves at liberty 

 3 impugn their motives and criticise their 

 ualifications most unsparingly, although 

 hey have not the slightest right to the ex- 

 ression of such feelings ; for having com- 

 litted their cause to their hands, they are 

 ound to submit to their decision, be that 

 rhat it may. So that, as much for the sake 

 f the judges as for the competitors, I am 

 ery desirous of seeing the present system 

 f public awards, everywhere done away; 

 rid return my thanks to your correspondent 

 >r the honour he has done me, in consider- 

 ig my plan " worthy of me ;" which, I as- 

 ure him, is all that I aspire to. I conclude 

 i the words of another — 

 " Observation and comment are unavoid- 

 ble, wherever there are eyes to see and 

 earts to feel. An honest man will not fear 

 lvestigation ; if he is not sure of his opin- 

 >ns, he will say so, and endeavour to gain 

 lore light ; but if he is convinced, he will 

 leak them, and be ready to avow them, 

 'here are men who have found persecution 

 nd violence more endurable than conceal- 

 lent of their convictions." Z. 



P. S. Your correspondent has done me 

 ljustice — I hope unintentionally — in mak- 

 lg me say, there were cattle, on which the 

 ociety had heretofore lavished their premi- 

 ms, in the most extravagant manner. I 

 lid no such thing. That premiums had 

 sen lavishly bestowed on certain animals 

 resent, no one will deny; it was saying, the 

 ociety had been lavish in their praise; a 

 ;rm often used, without the obnoxious mean- 

 lg appended to it by your correspondent. 



Book Farming. — Show me a thrifty, prac- 

 cal and experimental farmer, and I will 

 low you a man who reads works on Agri- 

 ulture, or who borrows his hints from a 

 eighbour who takes Agricultural papers. 



Show me a farmer whose fences are going 

 ) decay — whose half starved cattle are stroll- 

 lg over a brush field — and I will show you 



man, who, if he is not on a retrograde 

 rack, takes too little interest in agriculture 

 ) patronize an agricultural paper. 



Cultivation of the Currant. 



Very few of our garden fruits are so 

 much neglected as the currant. Its cultiva- 

 tion seems to be in many instances, a matter 

 of no consideration ; and when the bushes 

 are once planted, they are left to take their 

 chance, and little attention is bestowed upon 

 them afterwards. Pruning is entirely for- 

 gotten, and the plants often become a prey 

 to insects, which soon destroy them. A 

 fruit so generally admired for its good quali- 

 ties and its many excellent uses, and so uni- 

 versally 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, 

 would have been found in our gardens, as 

 common as the new and improved sorts of 

 that fruit. 



In France the currant has long attracted 

 attention, and, until lately, has been much 

 more highly esteemed than the gooseberry. 

 But the French horticulturists did not at- 

 tempt any improvement 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 fruit by the production of seedlings, and 

 it is from this source that the very best va- 

 rieties at present known, have been spread 

 over Europe and America. 



The late Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., 

 President of the London Horticultural So- 

 ciety, called the attention of cultivators to 

 the currant, and he attempted the produc- 

 tion of new varieties from seed : a paper on 

 the subject was read by him before the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society, and subsequently 

 published in their Trarisactions. 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, se- 

 lect the red currant. Reasoning from his 

 extensive 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 cultiva- 

 tion, 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 currant, he 

 thought, might eventually become a very 

 sweet fruit. 



It is well known that the accidental cir- 



