216 Success with Small Fruits. 



Pruning may be done any time after the leaves fall, and success 

 depends upon its judicious and rigorous performance. The English 

 gardeners have recognized this fact, and they have as minute and care- 

 ful a system as we apply to the grape. These formal and rather 

 arbitrary methods can scarcely be followed practically in our hurried 

 American life. It seems to me that I can do no better than to lay down 

 some sound and general principles and leave their working out to the 

 judgment of the grower. In most instances, I imagine our best gar- 

 deners rarely trim two bushes exactly alike, but deal with each according 

 to its vigor and natural tendencies, for a currant bush has not a little 

 individuality. 



A young bush needs cutting back like a young grape-vine, and for the 

 same reason. A grape-vine left to itself would soon become a mass of 

 tangled wood yielding but little fruit, and that of inferior quality. In like 

 manner nature, uncurbed, gives us a great, straggling bush that is choked 

 and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. Air and light are essential, 

 and the knife must make spaces for them. Cutting back and shortening 

 branches develops fruit buds. Otherwise, we have long, unproductive 

 reaches of wood. This is especially true of the Cherry and other varieties 

 resembling it. The judicious use of the knife, kept up from year to year, 

 will almost double their productiveness. Again, too much very young 

 and too much old wood are causes of unfruitfulness. The skillful culturist 

 seeks to produce and preserve many points of branching and short spurs, 

 for it is here that the little fruit buds cluster thickly. When a branch is 

 becoming black and feeble from age, cut it back to the root, that space 

 may be given for younger growth. From six to twelve bearing stems, 

 from three to five feet high, with their shortened branches and fruit spurs, 

 may be allowed to grow from the roots, according to the vigor of the 

 plant and the space allotted to it. Usually, too many suckers start in the 

 spring. Unless the crop of young wood is valuable for propagation, all 

 except such as are needed to renew the bush should be cut out as early 

 as possible, before they have injured the forming crop. In rLr.gland, great 

 attention is paid to summer pruning, and here much might be accom- 

 plished by it if we had, or would take, the time. 



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