Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

"An ordinary cart is changed by putting in an axle fifteen inches longer than usual, the wheels thus making a track six feet and eight inches wide. The shafts and body of the cart are put just as close to one wheel as possible, so that the horse and the wheel will pass as near together, and as near in a line, as practicable. The axle of the other wheel being long, and bowing up several inches higher than ordinary in the middle, it passes over a row of bushes with little or no damage. Thus, fertilizers can be carried to all parts of the field."

Of course, it would not do to drive through bushes laden with fruit; but after they were picked, such a vehicle could cause but little injury.

In the garden and for home use there is the widest latitude. We may content ourselves, as many do, with a few old Red Dutch bushes that for a generation have struggled with grass and burdocks. We may do a little better, and set out plants in ordinary garden soil, but forget for years to give a particle of food to the starving bushes, remarking annually, with increasing emphasis, that they must be "running out." Few plants of the garden need high feeding more, and no others are more generally starved. I will guarantee that there are successful farmers who no more think of manuring a currant bush than of feeding crows. This fruit will live, no matter how we abuse it, but there are scarcely any that respond more quickly to generous treatment; and in the garden where it is not necessary to keep such a single eye to the margin of profit, many beautiful and interesting things can be done with the currant. The majority will be satisfied with large, vigorous bushes, well enriched, mulched and skilfully pruned. If we choose, however, we may train them into pretty little trees, umbrella, globe, or pyramid in shape, according to our fancy, and by watchfulness and the use of ashes, keep away the borers. In one instance I found a few vigorous shoots that had made a growth of nearly three feet in a single season. With the exception of the terminal bud and three or four just below it, I disbudded these shoots carefully, imbedded the lower ends six inches in moist soil as one would an ordinary cutting, and they speedily took root and developed into little trees. Much taller and more ornamental currant and gooseberry trees can be obtained by grafting any variety we wish on the Missouri species (Ribes aureum). These can be made pretty and useful ornaments of the lawn, as well as of the garden. Instead, therefore, of weed-choked, sprawling, unsightly objects, currant bushes can be made things of beauty, as well as of sterling worth.

The cultivation of the currant is very simple. As early in the spring as the ground is dry enough, it should be thoroughly stirred by plow or cultivator, and all perennial weeds and grasses just around the bushes taken out with pronged hoes or forks. If a liberal top-dressing of compost or some other fertilizer was not given in the autumn, which is the best time to apply it, let it be spread over the roots (not up against the stems) before the first spring cultivation. While the bushes are still young, they can be cultivated and kept clean, like any hoed crop; but after they come into bearing—say the third summer —a different course must be adopted. If the ground is kept mellow and bare under the bushes, the fruit will be so splashed with earth as to be unsalable, and washed fruit is scarcely fit for the table. We very properly wish it with just the bloom and coloring which Nature is a month or more in elaborating. Muddy or rinsed fruit suggests the sty, not a dining-room. A mulch of leaves, straw, evergreen boughs—anything that will keep the ground clean—applied immediately after the early spring culture, is the best and most obvious way of preserving the fruit; and this method also secures all the good results which have been shown to follow mulching. Where it is not convenient to mulch, I would suggest that the ground be left undisturbed after the first thorough culture, until the fruit is gathered. The weeds that grow in the interval may be mowed, and allowed to fall under the bushes. By the end of June, the soil will have become so fixed that, with a partial sod of weeds, the fruit may hang over, or even rest upon it, without being splashed by the heavy rains then prevalent. This course is not so neat as clean cultivation or mulching. Few fruit growers, however, can afford to make appearances the first consideration. I have heard of oats being sown among the bushes to keep the fruit clean, but their growth must check the best development of the fruit quite as much as the natural crop of weeds. It would be better to give clean culture, and grow rye, or any early maturing green crop, somewhere else, and when the fruit begins to turn, spread this material under the bushes. On many places, the mowings of weedy, swampy places would be found sufficient for the purpose. After the fruit is gathered, start the cultivator and hoe at once, so as to secure vigorous foliage and healthful growth throughout the entire summer.

Pruning may be done any time after the leaves fall, and success depends upon its judicious and rigorous performance. The English gardeners have recognized this fact, and they have as minute and careful a system as we apply to the grape. These formal and rather arbitrary methods can scarcely be followed practically in our hurried American life. It seems to me that I can do no better than to lay down some sound and general principles and leave their working out to the judgment of the grower. In most instances, I imagine, our best gardeners rarely trim two bushes exactly alike, but deal with each according to its vigor and natural tendencies; for a currant bush has not a little individuality.

A young bush needs cutting back like a young grapevine, and for the same reason. A grapevine left to itself would soon become a mass of tangled wood yielding but little fruit, and that of inferior quality. In like manner nature, uncurbed, gives us a great, straggling bush that is choked and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. Air and light are essential, and the knife must make spaces for them. Cutting back and shortening branches develops fruit buds. Otherwise, we have long, unproductive reaches of wood. This is especially true of the Cherry and other varieties resembling it. The judicious use of the knife, kept up from year to year, will almost double their productiveness. Again, too much very young and too much old wood are causes of unfruitfulness. The skilful culturist seeks to produce and preserve many points of branching and short spurs, for it is here that the little fruit buds cluster thickly. When a branch is becoming black and feeble from age, cut it back to the root, that space may be given for younger growth. From six to twelve bearing stems, from three to five feet high, with their shortened branches and fruit spurs, may be allowed to grow from the roots, according to the vigor of the plant and the space allotted to it. Usually, too many suckers start in the spring. Unless the crop of young wood is valuable for propagation, all except such as are needed to renew the bush should be cut out as early as possible, before they have injured the forming crop. In England, great attention is paid to summer pruning, and here much might be accomplished by it if we had, or would take, the time.

CHAPTER XXVI

CURRANTS, CONTINUED—PROPAGATION, VARIETIES

Pruning naturally leads to the subject of propagation, for much of that which is cut away, so far from being useless, is often of great value to the nurseryman; and there are few who grow this fruit for market who could not turn many an honest penny if they would take the refuse young wood of the previous summer's growth and develop it into salable bushes. In most instances a market would be found in their own neighborhood. Nothing is easier than success in raising young currant bushes, except failure. If cuttings are treated in accordance with their demand for moisture and coolness, they grow with almost certainty; if subjected to heat and drought, they usually soon become dry sticks. The very best course is to make and plant our cuttings in September or very early in October—just as soon as the leaves fall or will rub off readily. As is true of a root-slip, so also the wood cutting must make a callus at its base before there can be growth. From this the roots start out. Therefore, the earlier in the fall that cuttings are made, the more time for the formation of this callus. Often, autumn-planted cuttings are well rooted before winter, and have just that much start over those that must begin life in the spring. Six inches is the average length. See Figures A, B and C. Let the cuttings be sunk in deep, rich, moist, but thoroughly well-drained soil, so deeply as to leave but two or three buds above the ground. In the garden, where the design is to raise a few fine bushes for home use merely, let the rows be two feet apart and the cuttings six inches apart in the row. In raising them by the thousand for market, we must economize space and labor; and therefore one of the best methods, after rendering the ground mellow and smooth, is to stretch a line across the plat or field; then, beginning on one side of the line, to strike a spade into the soil its full depth, press it forward and draw it out. This leaves a slight opening, of the width and depth of the spade, and a boy following inserts in this three cuttings, one in the middle and one at each end. The man then steps back and drives the spade down again about four inches in the rear of the first opening, and, as he presses his spade forward to make a second, he closes up the first opening, pressing—indeed, almost pinching—the earth around the three slips that have just been thrust down, until but one or two buds are above the surface. We thus have a row of cuttings, three abreast, and about three inches apart, across the entire field. A space of three feet is left for cultivation, and then we plant, as before, another triple row. These thick rows should be taken up the following fall, when the largest may be sold; or planted where they are to fruit, and the smaller ones replanted in nursery rows. When land is abundant the cuttings may be sunk in single rows, with sufficient space between for horse cultivation, and allowed to mature into two-year-old plants without removal. If these are not planted or sold, they should be cut back rigorously before making the third year's growth.

[Illustration: CURRANT CUTTINGS AND CALLUS]