FRUIT. 161 



varieties are Black Champion and Black Naples ; Red varieties, 

 Defiance and M'amer's Grape; and White varieties, Out-leaved 

 "White Dutch and White Versailles. Young plants are easily- 

 raised from cuttings, and in two years are fit for planting. 

 Good fruit can be grown on bushes in the open, but walls 

 are best for growing competition fruit — a south wall for the 

 earliest, and a north aspect for later use. By planting on 

 dififerent aspects a suppl}' can be had from midsummer till 

 late m autumn. The shoots of the Black Currant should be 

 thinly laid in and trained over the wall. In training the Red 

 and White Currants, four shoots should be led up the wall at 

 15 inches apart, and the side-shoots kept pinched in summer 

 and pruned in winter to about two eyes from their base. 

 Plenty of light and air should be admitted to the fruit by 

 pinching and cutting out superfluous wood, and the clusters 

 thinned if too numerous. In June a top-di'essing of well- 

 rotted poultry-j-ard maniu'e mixed with fresh loam and soot is 

 beneficial to all Currants, and liquid manure, applied as the 

 fruit is swelling, improves the size of bunch and berry. Black 

 Currants should be gathered and exhibited singly, with part 

 of the footstalk attached to the berry, while the Red and 

 White should be exhibited in the bunch. They make a nice 

 dish when arranged with the stalks in the centre out of sight, 

 and neatly finished off in a conical form. The points of 

 merit in Black Currants are: (1.) Size; (2.) flavour; and 

 (3.) colour. In the Red and White : (1.) Size and flavour 

 of berries ; (2.) number and equality of the .berries in the 

 bunch; and (3.) colour. 



THE FIG. 



The Fig is one of the most fruitful of trees, some varieties 

 producing, under favourable circumstances, three crops in the 

 year. It is a native of Europe and certain parts of Africa, 

 and it lives to a great age. Good crops of fine fruit have been 

 grown on trees against south walls, in favourable districts, as 

 far north as Ross-shire, with some protection in winter and 

 spring, but they cannot be depended upon except in the best 

 localities in the South of England. Among the best exhibition 



