160 Pruning the Currant. 



Art. III. HoiD to Prune the Currant. By Robert Thomp- 

 son, Superintendent of the Orchard and Kitchen Garden 

 Department of the London Horticultural Society. 



In our last number, we gave Mr. Thompson's remarks on 

 the pruning of the gooseberry. We now have the pleasure 

 of presenting another excellent article by him, detailing, in 

 the same clear and practical manner, the proper mode of 

 pruning the currant. 



In one of our earlier volumes, (VIII. p. 324,) we gave a 

 long article upon the cultivation of the currant, in which we 

 particularly alluded to the proper system of pruning, and em- 

 braced the opportunity to urge upon cultivators the great 

 importance of more care in what is generally considered 

 a very simple process, — namely, the pruning of the plants. 

 There can be very little doubt, that the inferior quality of 

 nearly all the currants exposed for sale, in our markets, is 

 mainly owing to a want of a knowledge of the proper mode 

 of pruning the bushes. 



Indeed, it is rare to see a plantation of currants judiciously 

 managed. In the place of small, compact, stocky plants, 

 kept within a moderate compass, by yearly shortening of the 

 shoots and renewal of the wood, we too often find over- 

 grown, straggling bushes, with numerous branches of old 

 wood, three or four feet long, not larger than a pipe-stem, 

 bare of fruit-spurs for more than two-thirds their length, and 

 so weak as to be incapable of producing strong annual 

 shoots, so necessary to the production of fine fruit. When 

 once the plants become so degenerated, they can only be 

 brought back by heading them in very short, even to the loss 

 of the crop, for one season, so as to bring up a growth of 

 strong new wood ; afterwards, the pruning may be performed 

 as Mr. Thompson directs. 



We are gratified to state, that since the publication of the 

 article on the gooseberry, in our last, the Massachusett's Hor- 

 ticultural Society has decided to include among its pros- 

 pective premiums, for new seedling fruits, one for the goose- 



