THE SMALL !• Rl ITS OF NEW YORK 31 I 



CHAPTER XII 



THE EVOLUTION OP CULTIVATED GOOSEBERRIES 



The gooseberry, like the currant, is a modem garden plant, although it 

 was doubtless known to all the peoples of Europe and western Asia. The 

 species from which the present garden inhabitant comes grows wild through- 

 out temperate Europe and Asia and in the mountains of Greece, Italy, 

 Spain, and northern Africa. The Greeks and Romans do not mention 

 gooseberries. To them, no doubt, with an abundance of grapes and a great 

 variety of luscious tree fruits, the small, tart, astringent, wild gooseberry 

 did not seem worth domesticating; nor could it have been well grown about 

 the Mediterranean except in high altitudes. The gooseberry requires a 

 low temperature to bring it to perfection, and cold must sharpen the 

 appetites of those who would relish the austere taste of the first garden 

 gooseberries. 



The gooseberry of history is well grown only in the Old World. Early 

 settlers in America from England and Holland tried its culture here but the 

 hot dry American summers parched and withered both fruit and foliage. 

 Moreover, it was subject to a native mildew which, before preventive and 

 remedial sprays were introduced, made short work of European gooseberries 

 in America. A few of the several hundred varieties grown in Europe vicari- 

 ously grow in favored gardens in northeastern United States and adjacent 

 parts of Canada, but nowhere in the New World is the European gooseberry 

 a commercial success. 



A native American gooseberry has been domesticated, however, and 

 a few of its pure-bred varieties and a much greater number of its hybrids 

 have been cultivated in gardens -and commercial plantations on this side 

 of the Atlantic. The native wild gooseberries, than which the cultivated 

 sorts of the species are scarcely superior, must of course, have been used by 

 early settlers in the country wherever the plants grew wild, and no doubt 

 wild plants were occasionally grown by American pioneers in gardens, but 

 true domestication of the species seems not to have been attempted until 

 less than a hundred years ago. But before discussing this native goose- 

 berry further, something must be said of the origin, history, and present 

 status of the European gooseberry. 



