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.
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