PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 161 



\vith success, having a climate milder than that of England with 

 much of its humidity. To succeed with them here we must plant 

 them upon soil that is cool and moist on the north side of a hill 

 or a cool and half-shady place, and then keep the bushes properly 

 pruned ; for under such circumstances we have seen abundant 

 and regular crops for years in succession. If our cultivators 

 would take our indigenous varieties, (of which we have some 

 twenty), and many of them superior to the native European 

 variet}', and sow the seed, and by so doing improve them, we 

 should soon have varieties of this fruit that would be equal if 

 not superior to any imported variety. Besides being native, they 

 would be exempt from those diseases which we have to contend 

 with in the cultivation of the foreign kinds. The currant seems 

 to succeed everywhere, and perhaps there is none of our fruits of 

 which there are more distinct species and varieties found grow- 

 ing wild in different parts of the world than there is of this 

 plant. North America alone furnishes some fifteen or sixteen 

 indigenous varieties. But the varieties mostly in cultivation are 

 of the European species, and which were grown from the old red, 

 white, and black currants of that country. The English gar- 

 deners have had the currant in cultivation for more than three 

 hundred years, without making any improvement upon it, although 

 Mr. Knight, in 1810, raised many seedlings, some of which, at 

 that time, were thought to be improvements upon the present 

 varieties, but as soon as they were neglected, or given no better 

 cultivation than the older varieties they were found to be no 

 better. And we believe that if many of our new fruits were 

 given no better care than the older ones, they would soon be 

 found to be no better. But when we get a new plant, and per- 

 haps pay a large price for it, we feel bound to give it extra cul- 

 ture, and by so doing we get exira results, and this leads us to 

 believe that it is in the variety, when the truth is that it is only 

 the effects of extra cultivation. The French have been very 

 successful in producing new varieties, and to them more than to 

 any other nation are we indebted for improved varieties of fruits 

 of all kinds, and our best currants among the rest. If we were 

 called on at this present time for a list of currants, and be gov- 

 erned by our own experience, wo should give the following, and 

 their relative merits as to size, quality, and productiveness, in 

 the order in which they stand : La Versailles, red ; Imperial 

 Rouge, red ; Imperial Jaune, pale yellow ; White Grape, white ; 



