Varieties. 223 



The great market currant is the Cherry. In the Canadian Horticult- 

 urist, for September, 1878, I find the following: 



"The history of this handsome currant is not without interest. Monsieur 

 Adrienne Seneclause, a distinguished horticulturist in France, received it from 

 Italy among a lot of other currants. He noticed the extraordinary size of 

 the fruit, and gave it, in consequence, the name it yet bears. In the year 

 1843, it was fruited in the nursery of the Museum of Natural History, and figured 

 from these samples in the Annales de Flore et de Pomone for February, 1848. Dr. 

 William W. Valk, of Flushing, Long Island, N. Y., introduced it to the notice of 

 American fruit growers in 1846, having imported some of the plants in the spring of 

 that year." 



This variety is now very widely disseminated, and its culture is appar- 

 ently becoming increasingly profitable every year. Two essentials are 

 requisite to success with it high manuring and skillful pruning. It has 

 the tendency to produce long branches, on which there are but few 

 buds. Rigorous cutting back, so as to cause branching joints and fruit 

 spurs, should be practiced annually. The foliage is strong and coarse, and 

 the fruit much more acid than the Dutch family; but, size and beauty carry 

 the market, and the Cherry can be made, by high culture, very large and 

 beautiful, as the engraving suggests. (See page 243.) 



Versailles, or La Versaillaise, is a figurative bone of contention. The 

 horticultural doctors disagree so decidedly that the rest of us can, without 

 presumption, think for ourselves. Mr. A. S. Fuller has probably given the 

 subject more attention than any one else, and he asserts, without any hesi- 

 tancy, that this so-called variety is identical with the Cherry. Mr. Fuller 

 is certainly entitled to his opinion, for he obtained plants of the Cherry and 

 Versailles from all the leading nurserymen in America, and imported them 

 from the standard nurseries abroad, not only once, but repeatedly, yet 

 could never get two distinct varieties. The writer in the Canadian Horti- 

 culturist also states in regard to the Versailles : " Some pains were taken 

 to obtain this variety on different occasions, and from the most reliable 

 sources, so that there might be no mistake as to the correctness of the name ; 

 but after many years of trial, we are unable to perceive any decided varia- 

 tion, either in the quality of the fruit, the length of the bunch, or the habit 

 of the plant, from the Cherry currant." 



I must admit that I am inclined to take the same view ; for, during 

 several years, I have looked in vain for two distinct varieties. I have care- 

 fully kept the two kinds separate, but find in each case the same stout, 

 stocky, short-jointed, erect shoots that are often devoid of buds, and 



