428 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the trials of our climate, and as our native gooseberries in their wild state 

 are too harsh with acidity, and with prickles, not only upon the hush but 

 upon the fruit itself, to be taken into gardens in their uncultivated state, we 

 have almost lost knowledge of what good there is in gooseberries. Gradually, 

 however, improvement has shown itself. The old Sweetwater was tolerable; 

 Houghton had decided merit; the Mountain Seedling was better as a bush; 

 Smith's a larger fruit; and Downing's quite an approach to the English 

 sorts. 



The gooseberry is peculiar in being at its best for culinary use when still 

 quite green, taking the place of pie-plant when that begins to fail, and with 

 a great deal more piquancy of flavor; a flavor so penetrating and so appetiz- 

 ing as to make one quite willing to wait for the full maturity of the straw- 

 berries which come next in the circle of fruits. Green gooseberries, like 

 their co-acids, the cranberries, keep so well that before anything was known 

 of the present practice of canning fruits and vegetables, they used to be put 

 into bottles, the spaces filled with boiled water, used cold, and so sealed up, 

 for use at any time. A pound of green gooseberries requires, it is true, a 

 pound of sugar to render them exquisite as tarts or sauce, but these two 

 pounds have vastly more gustatorial vim than two pounds of sugar alone 

 possess. 



The prickliness of gooseberry bushes, their irregular and crowded natural 

 growth, and the consequent ease with which they become choked with grass 

 or weeds, soon expel them from the gardens of the indolent. Yet they are 

 very easily managed if time be taken by the forelock. A boy or girl can 

 easily manage them, and near town markets might readily earn their pocket 

 money from their culture. This demands, first, good sorts ; next, good soil 

 or liberal mulching with manure ; but if the soil is already rich the mulch 

 may be tan or coal ashes. If a bush has become crowded the weaker shoots 

 are snipped out with shears and some old rags or paper stuffed in to keep 

 others from springing up. Cut out weak shoots of last year and very old 

 exhausted ones. All over the bush the shoots should be as evenly as possible 

 six inches apart, to let light into the heart, and to have fruit on the entire 

 head. It is well to use the shears some as soon as the fruit has been picked. 

 Tie in or prop up shoots that wander or crowd others. With gloves and 

 good shears a boy will take pleasure in the work, and will have learned the 

 principles that apply to the pruning of orchard trees. 



Mr. James Dougall, agricultural editor of the New York Witness, who has 



given special attention to the culture of the gooseberry, advises as follows as 



to multiplication of the plants : 



The only successful way to raise gooseberry cuttings is to put them early 

 in fall in a sloping trench, at an angle of 45 degrees or so ; the earth above 

 them prevents the cuttings from heaving with the frost, as they always do 

 when planted perpendicular. In the sloping position the bottom end of the 

 cutting is not more than two or three inches deep and in the warm ground, 

 so that they root easily, and every bud almost starts, so that when taken up 

 in fall each cutting of ten inches in length makes probably four plants. 



