PRUNING THE CURRANT 



347 



PRUNING 



Pruning the currant is often neglected, yet pro- 

 ductiveness largely depends upon it. Plants will pro- 

 duce some fruit no mat- 

 ter how treated, and 

 hence are likely to be 

 treated very indiffer- 

 ently. The fruit is 

 borne both on old and 

 young wood, the best 

 and most of it appar- 

 ently near the base of 

 the one-year-old shoots 

 and on short one year- 

 old spurs from the older 

 wood. Consequently, 

 most of the young wood 

 may be cut away, or the 

 old wood may be cut 

 out, leaving young 

 shoots, and fruit will 

 still be produced. The 

 younger the wood the 

 finer the fruit, as a 

 rule, but the plants are 

 likely to be less produc- 

 tive unless a fair supply 

 of wood more than one year old is left. Yet this 

 older wood soon becomes weak, and produces small 

 and inferior fruit. 



Fig. 66. Tree-form currant. 



