'CURRANTS RASPS. 137 



little, and is sold in the shops under the name of 

 oakum. In this way the trees occupy little room, 

 and it is easy, as the branches are all loose, to re- 

 move annually such as are effete, giving room to 

 those which are in a proper state for bearing. 



The red currant, as a standard, is rendered very 

 productive by a mode of treatment that is nowise 

 gentle or promising in appearance. In the season 

 of pruning, let the whole tree be stumped down into 

 the figure of a hardworn birch besom, and let the 

 young shoots which grow up in the summer be cut 

 in July, within a handbreadth of the old stumps, 

 and with as little discrimination as in pruning a 

 hedge. Then in winter, what remains of the young 

 shoots must be reduced to the same destroyed-like 

 appearance as before. A method so unlikely is 

 not a little ingenious; and which, being defended 

 by success, may also be explained by the nature of 

 the tree. Left to its own sprawling growth, the 

 sap has too far to ascend, and the leaves are too 

 scanty to exclude the sun, which the fruit does not 

 love. When the branches are long the fruit will 

 be found small, and hanging in single rows, each 

 like a string of small beads; but in the reduced 

 form the fruit is concentrated, and grows large and 

 in bunches that fill the hand. There is a thick 

 clothing of leaves, under which the fruit is cherished 

 as to its growth; and for its ripening, the shearing 

 of the young shoots admits the sun at the proper 

 season. 



Of rasps, the best are the red and the white 



