Culture of the Currant.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 160, 28 August 1886, Page 2

Culture of the Currant.

Cut out the old wood and train up the new shoots, is the advice given for the successful culture of the currant. The usual practice is to cut out all wood that shows signs of decay and thin out the new shoots so that they shall not become too crowded. A plan practiced by some is "to cut back one-half the new growth on the top of the bush each year after they are old enough to bear and only leave one or two young shoots each year from the bottom." The following advantages are claimed : Strong growth in the fruiting part of the bu^h, at the top rank foliage that will not fall off until fruit comes, thus keeping the fruit from sunscalding and having to be picked early in the season to save it ; larger fruit and longer branches, because all the small currants and short branches are produced near the terminal buds, and these being pruned off give nothing but the largest fruit, and as it is the Reed that exhausts the plant, and small currants have just as manj r seeds as large currants, 80 when they are disposed of the' plant will bear its burden of fruit each yean without exhaustion, and thus allowing ' a better growth and : thicker, stronger foliage; regular' bearing, for' strong, healthy bushes will bear 'every year , unle«s they" hV'e grown too ' much ' wood^ from too 1 cloJe pruning, in which case pne'year' without' pruning badk will balance ' it : again Bushes thus pruned will grow year after year and become much larger than v wh*en pruned nvthe i old ( w»y, and^they I''cfiri,1 ''cfiri, ( iri'°thkt case, 'be* planted further apart,. 'thus' making 1 a "saving of' ! plants,- .By this 1 method of pruning: the common ean 1 be made to produce as large frtiit, or nearly as large,' as the vfery '^largest Varieties. • Bushes - laist* - for ' nearly- a'ijuarter of a century,- if f pruned in this way, ana^byHhis method the growing of currants can be made as profitable as the growing of any other kind of fruit.

A correspondent of a New York paper isr vOl 7 enthusiastic in praise of the method which ho calls the Canadian method, and he makes even further claims for it than we have here published. He claima tp have practiced it and knows whereof he speaks.