THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTEY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, November 25, 1850. 125 
nearly two inches. I have proved the medium course to be 
satisfactory, and that about one inch is best. Let us now 
! suppose that we have been thus operating on a bush, 
and that it is a good-sized one, having at least its full 
complement of main branches—that the spurring back 
is complete. We must now talk about the shortening 
process, and, in so doing, must resort to the bush in its 
young or nursing condition. I spoke before of the 
general maxims as to the placing, by the primer’s art, 
of the leading branches, which must ultimately form the 
fabric of the bush. I did not, however, refer to the 
shortening process, which, by most persons, is considered 
requisite, and for the following reasons. Currants left 
without shortening, if growing freely, would bo almost 
barren of spurs for one half their height. A bush may, 
and frequently does, produce shoots of two feet in 
length iu one summer; but under the most favourable 
circumstances we may not expect a greater length than 
nine inches to be clothed properly with spui’s. “ Mul- 
tum in parvo ” must be our motto here as in many other 
affairs; in other words, we must aim at many clusters 
of spurs in a small compass ; and, by thus pruning back 
annually to a reasonable length of young wood, the bush 
will become clothed with spurs. These things well under¬ 
stood, in reference to the shortening, T may observe, 
that the degree to which shoots ought to be shortened 
must ever depend much on the power of developing side- 
spurs. Taking the average, I would recommend from 
six to ten inches. This much may surely suffice for 
the Red and White Currants. Much more might, of 
course, be said ; but I am uecessitated to move towards 
other objects, especially,as bush-pruning may commence 
at any time. 
Black Currants. —These bear on the young wood 
chiefly ; at least, the inducing them to do so is the chief 
consideration. Thus, as before observed, they are much 
opposed in habit to the Red and White. Red Currants 
may be too luxuriant; Black can scarcely be so, and 
their character for profit depends much on the freedom 
with which they produce young wood. Their pruning, 
therefore, becomes very simple. They are seldom 
shortened by our best cultivators, as their wood is 
generally mature betimes to the very extremities; they, 
moreover, bear some of the very fiuest fruit towards the 
points of the shoots. Sometimes, however, there are 
special reasons for having recourse to a severe shortening, 
such as in the case of old and exhausted bushes, those 
which have lost some of their main branches through 
premature decay, or such as have been badly managed 
in their earlier stages. In such a position, whole 
branches sometimes have to be removed, or partially so; 
and this with a view to induce a liberal amount of 
young spray to come forth, tending, of course, to the 
renewal of the bush, and to keep it well furnished. 
In thinning out the young spray of the Black 
Currant it is not necessary, as with the Red, to keep the 
centre particularly open, although it should not be 
quite so full of wood as the exterior, remembering that the 
finest fruit is ever produced from the latter, in con¬ 
sequence of the free access of light and air. As a 
maxim I should say, that for young spray an average of 
five or six inches apart will produce a heavier and 
liner crop than it would if left thicker; and there is yet 
another consideration—the vigour of the bushes will be 
less impaired, and they will be less liable to blights than 
when in a crammed condition. But the flavour, also, is 
a consideration ; and who, as regards any fruit, expects 
the same amount of flavour from an over-cropped tree 
or bush as from one receiving fair treatment? 
And now a word or two about insects, blights, &c. 
The Black Currant is very liable to the attacks of 
aphides, and many a crop is lost or spoiled through 
their depredations. 
In summer-time it is difficult to cope with them, 
tobacco-water being the only certain remedy, and this 
is too expensive for people in general, seeing, at the same 
time, there are so many claimants for it in the fruit- 
garden. There can be'little doubt that insects, their 
eggs, &c., for the most part lurk about the very bush or 
tree that reared them; that those left alive spend their 
winters in that spot, and migrate little. Such, if any¬ 
ways correct, is at once suggestive of preventive 
measures in the course of the winter. Now, it would 
seem that any application to the stems of bushes or 
trees should either be compounded on the principle of 
proviugat once destructive to insects, or else of blocking 
them up iu their little fortresses, and so starving them 
to death by precluding the air, &c. At present I fear 
there is no power sufficiently tested of an instantly 
destroying character, proved, at the same time, to be 
innoxious to vegetable life. We have, however, com¬ 
positions which will block them up in their dens; and 
this is the course I would, at the present moment, 
recommend. I have used soft-soap and clay-water 
hitherto, and, in the case of Plums, have found it of 
great importance ; but, as this is liable to wash off' too 
speedily, my friend Mr. Hill, of Keele Hall, who has 
used it, informs me that he adds glue-water to it; bin 
in what preparation my notes do not inform me. The 
clay must be made into a thick paint, and some soft-soap 
being dissolved in water, after the rate of about five 
ounces to the gallon, must be thickened with the clay- 
water until of the consistence of a thin paint. This 
daubed well into every crevice, and, indeed, all over the 
bark, will form a regular coating. I intend, however, 
to try Mr. Hill’s plan this season, and will report the 
results. R. Erejngton. 
EXOTIC NURSERY, KING’S ROAD, LONDON. 
MR. J. VEITCH, Jun. 
Unless one happens to drop in for the “ house 
heating” he has no right to disturb that family until 
the new household arrangements have been completed, 
tested, and finally settled; and no man in his senses would 
ever pop the question before luncheon, as did the “ Laird 
of Cockpen,” and got a flat denial, as he ought, which 
made him “ dumbfoundered.” For many years I knew 
Mr. Veitch only in his dress suit from Exeter; and, on his 
comiug to London as a star of the first magnitude from 
the provincial sphere, I knew he must be allowed a 
sufficient time to regulate his cloak in London before he 
could have leisure to entertain gossipers. Those who 
have been endowed with the “second sight,” like some 
of us from the Highlands, know to an inch how things 
staud at home from merely seeing how a man places a 
collection of plants for competition. I expected to find 
everything in the Exotic Nursery in first-rate nursery 
style ; but the style for the winter is much beyond what 
I believed “ would pay.” it must pay, however, and that 
pretty considerably, for Mr. Veitch must have spent a 
mint of money here before he could have come up in this 
style, for there is not an inch of bis ground here which 
was not as familiar -to me for many years as writing a 
column of garden gossip. I also kuow how the piper- 
must be paid when you want the tune to be “extra.” 
Yet, after all, I did not dream of the rapid stride he has 
effected iu the Exotic Nursery iu so short a time. 
Although he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, 
that is not the secret of his success. All the money in the 
mint, and all the philosophy on earth, will not make a 
man a practical; and, without being thoroughly practical, 
a man will never stand at the head of the nursery 
profession. 
Mr. Veitch had to “strap to it” when he was young, 
even attending the fires, siftiug coals and cinders 
