Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1879 — Currant Growing. [ARTICLE]

Currant Growing.

The currant is, next to the strawberry, the most popular of our small fruits. The sale far exceeds that of the raspberry, the blackberry, or even the grape, and there is rarely, if ever, a full supply in the market. Since the advent and general spread of the currant worm very few currants are grown in private gardens. Though there is no real difficulty in preventing their ravages, the matter is almost always neglected until the worms have spread themselves over the bushes and done so much damage to the foliage as to destroy the erop and so injure the plant as to prevent a good crop the next season. Then one more onset of the worms, not promptly met, finishes the bush, and the cultivator votes it cheaper to buy than to grow currants. We have grown currants for the last twelve years on a large scale for a country neighborhood, our crop ranging from twenty to forty bushels, and we have never been able to meet the calls of all our customers. Orders come to us for this fruit from forty, fifty, and even one hundred miles away. It is the only small fruit the price of which has not had to be reduced since the hard times, and last year it brought us as much money per bushel as strawberries at half the cost. We believe that there is not a village of any size in Vermont that will not furnish a market for the product of five hundred currant bushes, say fifteen to twenty bushels, at twelve and onehalf cents a quart. Yet we get so few orders for currant bushes that we have ceased to grow them in our nursery, except to supply our own wants, which call for about one hundred plants a year. The currant comes into full bearing

about three years after the setting of yearling plants grown from cuttings, and when taken care of they wili continue to give improving crops for five or six years longer. With careful pruning they will last much longer, but we prefer to replant after eight vears. The average product will be from two to four quarts per bush, though bushes of some varieties, such as the Red Gondonhi, will frequently yield a peck each. But there is •* an but in everything,” and this very productive kind has the habit of rotting almost before they are ripe. The only kind we would ever plant for profit is the red Dutch. There is very little dq/nand jor the white varieties, though they mtike a nice and almost as nigh-colored jelly as the red; but it is difficult to make purchasers believe it. The white grape is even more productive than the red Dutch, out the branches are not sufficiently erect to keep the fruit clean. The Versailles and cherry currants are very large, and it might pay to grow them near large cities, but we cannot get a cent more a quart for them, and not often more than a quart to the bush. 'oa heavy soil they would probably do better than with us. but so would the other kinds. ' Our currants are planted between the trees in our young apple orchard. The land is kept, in condition to grow fair crops of corn. , In rich garden soil much better results could be obtained. We grow the black-cap raspberry in the same, way, and can make large crops, but the sale is limited. Occasionally we plant a bed of strawberries between two rowe of apple- trees. - This fruit has to be h’ghly manured to do anything, and we notice that the ad-

joining currant bushes show the benefit of the enrichment in their neighborhood. We do not often do this, however. as our orchard ground is not our best strawberry land. The crops there are oftener pease, bean* or corn. The strawberry not only requires rich but moist land for profitable growth. If we could get enough manure we could double our currant crop on the same number of bushes, hut then we could not grow them in the orchard, for it idoes not answer to force the growth of a young orchard in our climate. The worst foe of the currant is not the currant-worm, but the rbbin. These birds have so multiplied iu our grounds that last season they destroyed half our currants, and utterly ruined our raspberry crop. They pick off and drop ten berries to every one they swallow, so that the ground under the bushes is covered with them. Perhaps they do this out of revenge for our killing the worms, which ornithologists say they are so fond of. We leave that question to those of uur readers who have depended on the birds to keep their currant bushes clear of worms.— Cor. Vermont Chronicle.