January, 1915 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



193 



when they get ripe, but will hang on the 

 bushes in perfect condition for days or 

 even weeks. 



There is an idea among gardeners not 

 familiar with modern means of controlling 

 insects and fungi that in many localities 

 currants can not be grown suc- 

 cessfully because of worms, and 

 gooseberries because of blight 

 and mildew. This idea is 

 wrong. Blight and mildew and 

 damage by worms can be pre- 

 vented almost absolutely by an 

 easy course of spraying with bor- 

 deaux mixture or lime-sulphur, com- 

 bined with either arsenate of lead 

 or arsenite of zinc. These bush 

 troubles are no more serious than 

 blight of quinces. In the absence 

 of proper preventive measures the 

 damage is serious, but the right 

 treatment always is effective. Goose- 

 berry bushes may be rendered partly 

 immune from blight by opening 

 them up and giving them enough, 

 and not too much, of sun and air. 



Like raspberries, gooseberries are 

 natives of the cooler north. Unless 

 they are shaded and kept from the 

 burning sun they will not bear much 

 in the south. Currants also do better 

 in a relatively cool climate than in a 

 hot one, and both fruits prefer moist clay 

 soils to dryer sandy soils. But no matter 

 what the soil is you can grow them success- 

 fully if you will put plenty of vegetable 

 matter into the ground and keep plenty of 

 moisture present. 



Under your apple and pear trees is a 

 good place for the gooseberry bushes es- 

 pecially, and the shade will not hurt the 

 currants. It probably will be the wisest 

 course to plan in the beginning for some 

 easy means of watering or irrigating the 

 bushes regularly. In further respect to 

 climatic conditions, it may be said that 

 the lowlands of New Jersey and Long 

 Island are as far south from the view- 

 point of a gooseberry bush as the high 

 mountains of North Carolina, since eleva- 

 tion is as much a factor in climatic effects 

 as latitude. 



All the varieties named here are of ex- 



Making the 

 useful also or- 

 namental 



food. 



Gooseberries and currants occupy little space, and in this 

 Connecticut garden are used as a hedge 



cellent quality. The white sorts of cur- 

 rants generally are sweetest. Black sorts 

 make the best jelly and jam, and red sorts 

 make the prettiest preserves, as well as the 

 handsomest jelly. Yellow and green goose- 

 berries are best to eat with cream and sugar, 

 or right off the bushes. The 

 red kinds are most attractive 

 looking. When they are canned 

 they retain all their beauty, 

 and will make your mouth 

 water as much in the winter, 

 when you open the cans, as 

 ripe strawberries do in June. 



A home garden of an eighth of 

 an acre in the middle climatic belt 

 ought to contain about four goose- 

 berry plants. These should yield 

 upward of 16 quarts of fruit. 

 Also in this garden plant about 

 four currant bushes, which ought 

 to yield 30 quarts of fruit. A half 

 acre garden ought to have five 

 times as many of these plants as 

 an eighth-acre garden, and an 

 acre-garden ten times as many. 

 The big gardens usually have to 

 supply the demands of a big house- 

 hold, and usually it is the kind of 

 a household that likes plenty of 

 the better kinds of provender and 

 not so much of the so-called plain 

 It is not at all hard to dispose of 

 100 to 200 quarts of fresh gooseberries 

 and currants in the different methods of 

 putting them up and preparing them for 

 the table. 



Plant gooseberries very early in the spring. 

 They begin to push out their buds before 

 the grass on your lawn begins to show green, 

 and should be in their places previous to 

 the time any growth takes place. There- 

 fore see about your order now, this month ! 

 Remember that both gooseberries and cur- 

 rants are more or less permanent fixtures 

 in your garden, and that you will have no 

 chance after they are once set to remake 

 their beds. It is well to do this little job 

 thoroughly. Feed the plants after they 

 are started, with sulphate of potash, ground 

 or dissolved bone and cotton seed meal or 

 nitrate of soda. Manure is good, of course, 

 but you should regard it, for purposes, more 

 as a means of getting vegetable matter into 

 the soil than as a source of the plant food 

 elements. Straw, cut corn fodder, hay, 

 leaves or anything else that has grown and 

 is free from the seeds of weeds is just a good 

 source of vegetable matter as manure and 

 sometimes is cheaper to get and easier and 

 more pleasant to apply. All the commer- 

 cial fertilizer even an acre garden will re- 

 quire will not seriously undermine your 

 bank account. 



Get your plants from reliable nursery- 

 men. After you have your start it is 

 possible to get new plants by means of 

 layering and root cuttings, but before you 

 do this study the subject well. It is a 

 bothersome process and should not be 

 attempted unless you want to experiment. 

 Good plants are to be bought for mighty 

 little money in the twentieth century. 



Cultivate the gooseberry and currant 

 bushes during the time from April to August 

 of each year, then mulch them heavily, pre- 

 ferably with leaves, but lacking leaves, 

 with straw or hay, and leave the mulch till 

 time to cultivate again. 



All the varieties named in the lists are 

 hardy and if they winterkill at all it will 

 be only a tip bud or so. Most of the sorts 

 are descendants of American wild varieties 

 or their hybrids. A few are English. As a 

 rule the imported sorts are more attacked 

 by mildew than American sorts, but if you 

 spray as articles from time to time in The 

 Garden Magazine tell you how, you will 

 have no trouble from mildew on any of 

 the varieties. 



In Europe every garden has its currants 

 and gooseberries, and every cook knows a 

 hundred ways of preparing the fruit. In 

 America it is the exceptional home garden 

 that has either currants or gooseberries, 

 or has enough of them, or has the improved 

 varieties. This is unfortunate, consider- 

 ing the many uses and the merits of the 

 fruit, and surprising, too, because it is 

 so easy to plant the bushes and so little 

 trouble to keep them in condition for 

 heavy bearing. 



VARIETIES OF CURRANTS FOR HOME GARDENS 



Name Color Quality 



high 

 good 

 high 

 good 

 good 

 high 

 good 



Quality 



good 

 good 

 good 

 high 

 high 

 high 



Wilder 



red 



Victoria 



red 



White Grape 



white 



Black Naples 



black 



Versailles 



red 



Red Cross 



red 



Perfection 



red 



VARIETIES OF G( 



)OSEBERRI 

 GARDEN 



Name 



Color 



Carrie 



red 



Downing 



green 



Pearl 



green 



Industry 



red 



Whitesmith 



yellow 



Keepsake 



vellow 



Red Jacket 



red 



Oregon Champion 



green 



Gooseberries can be grown well in any ordinarily good 

 garden. Why not forget tradition and try some for your- 

 self? 



