214 Success wit /i Small Fruits. ^ 



annually, with increasing emphasis, that they must be " running out." 

 Few plants of the garden need high feeding more, and no others are more 

 generally starved. I will guarantee that there are successful farmers who 

 no more think of manuring a currant bush than of feeding crows. This 

 fruit will live, no matter how we abuse it, but there are scarcely any 

 that respond more quickly to generous treatment ; and in the garden where 

 it is not necessary to keep such a single eye to the margin of profit, 

 many beautiful and interesting things can be done with the currant. The 

 majority will be satisfied with large, vigorous bushes, well enriched, 

 mulched and skillfully pruned. If we choose, however, we may 

 train them into pretty little trees, umbrella, globe, or pyramidal in 

 shape, according to our fancy, and, by watchfulness and the use of 

 ashes, keep away the borers. The beautiful cluster of Cherry currants 

 seen in the engraving was taken from a little tree about three feet high, 

 grown in the following simple manner. I found a few vigorous shoots 

 that had made a growth of nearly three feet in a single season. With 

 the exception of the terminal bud and three or four just below it, I 

 disbudded these shoots carefully, imbedded the lower ends six inches in 

 moist soil, as one would an ordinary cutting, and they speedily took root 

 and developed into little trees. Much taller and more ornamental cur- 

 rant and gooseberry trees can be obtained by grafting any variety we 

 wish on the Missouri species (Ribes Aureum). These, as the artist has 

 suggested, can be made pretty and useful ornaments of the lawn, as 

 well as of the garden. Instead, therefore, of weed-choked, sprawling, 

 unsightly objects, currant bushes can be made things of beauty, as well 

 as of sterling worth ; and how very beautiful they are will, perhaps, be 

 realized for the first time by some who study the artist's work. 



The cultivation of the currant is very simple. As early in the spring 

 as the ground is dry enough, it should be thoroughly stirred by plow 

 or cultivator, and all perennial weeds and grasses just around the 

 bushes taken out with pronged hoes or forks. If P liberal top- 

 dressing of compost or some other fertilizer was not given m the autumn, 

 which is the best time to apply it, let it be spread over the roots (not 

 tip against the stems) before the first spring cultivation. While the 

 bushes are still young, they can be cultivated and kept clean, like any 

 hoed crop ; but after they come into bearing, say the third summer, 

 a different course must be adopted. If the ground is kept mellow and bare 

 tinder the bushes, the fruit will be so splashed with earth as to be unsalable, 

 and washed fruit is scarcely fit for the table. We very properly wish it 

 with just the bloom and coloring which nature is a month or more in 



