The Home Acre

by Edward Payson Roe

The art of trimming a currant-bush, like that of pruning a grape-vine, is best learned by observation and experience. One can give principles rather than lay down rules. Like the vine, the currant tends to choke itself with a superabundance of wood, which soon becomes more or less barren. This is truer of some varieties than of others; but in all instances the judicious use of the pruning-knife doubles the yield. In view of the supposition that the leading shoot and all the branches were shortened in one-half when the plant was set out, I will suggest that early in June it will be observed that much more wood is forming than can be permitted to remain. There are weak, crowding shoots which never can be of any use. If these are cut out at this time, the sap which would go to mature them will be directed into the valuable parts of the forming bush. Summer pruning prevents misspent force, and it may be kept up with great advantage from year to year. This is rarely done, however; therefore early in spring the bushes must receive a good annual pruning, and the long shoots and branches be cut well back, so as to prevent naked reaches of wood. Observe a very productive bush, and you will see that there are many points abounding in little side-branches. It is upon these that the fruit is chiefly borne. A bush left to itself is soon a mass of long, slender, almost naked stalks, with a little fruit at the ends. The ideal bush is stocky, open, well branched, admitting light, air, and sun in every part. There is no crowding and smothering of the fruit by the foliage. But few clusters are borne on very young wood, and when this grows old and black, the clusters are small. Therefore new wood should always be coming on and kept well cut back, so as to form joints and side-branches; and as other parts grow old and feeble they should be cut out. Observation and experience will teach the gardener more than all the rules that could be written, for he will perceive that he must prune each bush according to its own individuality.

For practical purposes the bush form is the best in which to grow currants; but they can easily be made to form pretty little trees with tops shaped like an umbrella, or any other form we desire. For instance, I found, one autumn, a shoot about three feet long. I rubbed off all the buds except the terminal one and three or four just beneath it, then sunk the lower end of the shoot six inches into the soil, and tied the part above the ground to a short stake. The following spring the lower end took root, and the few buds at the top developed into a small bushy head. Clumps of miniature currant-trees would make as pretty an ornament for the garden border as one would wish to see. It should be remembered that there is a currant as well as an apple borer; but the pests are not very numerous or destructive, and such little trees may easily be grown by the hundred.

Clean culture has one disadvantage which must be guarded against. If the ground under bushes is loose, heavy rains will sometimes so splash up the soil as to muddy the greater part of the fruit. I once suffered serious loss in this way, and deserved it; for a little grass mown from the lawn, or any other litter spread under and around the bushes just before the fruit ripened, would have prevented it. It will require but a very few minutes to insure a clean crop.

I imagine that if these pages are ever read, and such advice as I can give is followed, it will be more often by the mistress than the master of the Home Acre. I address him, but quite as often I mean her; and just at this point I am able to give "the power behind the throne" a useful hint. Miss Alcott, in her immortal "Little Women," has given an instance of what dire results may follow if the "jelly won't jell." Let me hasten to insure domestic peace by telling my fair reader (who will also be, if the jelly turns out of the tumblers tremulous yet firm, a gentle reader) that if she will have the currants picked just as soon as they are fully ripe, and before they have been drenched by a heavy rain, she will find that the jelly will "jell." It is overripe, water-soaked currants that break up families and demolish household gods. Let me also add another fact, as true as it is strange, that white currants make red jelly; therefore give the pearly fruit ample space in the garden.

In passing to the consideration of varieties, it is quite natural in this connection to mention the white sorts first. I know that people are not yet sufficiently educated to demand white currants of their grocers; but the home garden is as much beyond the grocer's stall as the home is better than a boarding-house. There is no reason why free people in the country should be slaves to conventionalities, prejudices, and traditions. If white currants ARE sweeter, more delicious and beautiful than the red, why, so they are. Therefore let us plant them abundantly.

If there is to be a queen among the currants, the White Grape is entitled to the crown. When placed upon the table, the dish appears heaped with translucent pearls. The sharp acid of the red varieties is absent, and you feel that if you could live upon them for a time, your blood would grow pure, if not "blue."

The bush producing this exquisite fruit is like an uncouth-looking poet who gives beauty from an inner life, but disappoints in externals. It is low-branching and unshapely, and must be forced into good form—the bush, not the poet—by the pruning-knife. If this is done judiciously, no other variety will bear more profusely or present a fairer object on a July day.

The White Dutch has the well-known characteristics in growth of the common Red Dutch currant, and is inferior only to the White Grape in size. The fruit is equally transparent, beautiful, mild, and agreeable in flavor, while the bush is enormously productive, and shapely in form, if properly trained and fertilized.

While the white currants are such favorites, I do not undervalue the red. Indeed, were I restricted to one variety, it should be the old Dutch Red of our fathers, or, more properly, of our grandmothers. For general house uses I do not think it has yet been surpassed. It is not so mild in flavor as the white varieties, but there is a richness and sprightliness in its acid that are grateful indeed on a sultry day. Mingled with the white berries, it makes a beautiful dish, while it has all the culinary qualities which the housekeeper can desire. If the bush is rigorously pruned and generously enriched, it is unsurpassed in productiveness, and the fruit approaches very nearly to the Cherry currant in size.

I do not recommend the last-named kind for the home garden, unless large, showy fruit counts for more than flavor. The acid of the Cherry currant, unless very ripe, is harsh and watery. At best it never acquires an agreeable mildness, to my taste. The bushes also are not so certainly productive, and usually require skilful pruning and constant fertilizing to be profitable. For the market, which demands size above all things, the Cherry is the kind to grow; but in the home garden flavor and productiveness are the more important qualities. Fay's Prolific is a new sort that has been very highly praised.