314 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



thome also upon them: the leaves are like unto the former red, but smaller; 

 the berries stand singly at the leaves as Gooseberries doe, and are of a fine 

 red colour when they are ripe, but change with standing to be of a darker 

 red colour, of the bignesse of the small ordinary Gooseberry, of a pretty tart 

 taste, and somewhat sweete withall. 



" The third red Gooseberry which is the greatest, and knowne but unto 

 few, is so like unto the common great Gooseberry, that it is hardly dis- 

 tinguished: the fruit or berries grow as plentifully on the branches as the 

 ordinary, and are as great & round as the great ordinary kinde, but reddish, 

 and some of them paler, with red stripes. 



"The blew Gooseberry riseth up to bee a bush like unto the red Curran, 

 and of the same bignesse and height, with broader and redder leaves at 

 the first shooting out, then the second red Gooseberry: the berries are more 

 sparingly set on the branches, then on the small red, and much about the 

 same bignesse, or rather lesser, of the colour of a Damson, with an over- 

 shadowing of a blewish colour upon them, as the Damson hath, before it 

 be handled or wiped away. 



" The greene prickly Gooseberry is very like unto the ordinary Goose- 

 berry in stemme and branches, but that they are not stored with so many 

 sharpe prickles; but the young shootes are more plentifull in small prickles 

 about, and the greene leafe is a little smaller: the flowers are alike, and so 

 are the berries, being of a middle size, and not very great, greene when they 

 are thorough ripe as well as before, but mellower, and having a few small 

 short prickles, like small short haires upon them, which are harmlesse, and 

 without danger to anie the most dainty and tender palate that is, and of a 

 very good pleasant taste. The seede hereof hath produced bushes bearing 

 berries, having few or no prickles upon them. 



"the use of gooseberries 



"The berries of the ordinary Gooseberries, while they are small, greene, 

 and hard, are much used to bee boyled or scalded to make sawce, both for 

 fish and flesh of divers sorts, for the sicke sometimes as well as the sound, 

 as also before they bee neere ripe, to bake into tarts, or otherwise, after 

 manie fashions, as the cunning of the Cooke, or the pleasure of liis com- 

 manders will appoint. They are a fit dish for women with childe to stay 

 their longings, and to prociire an appetite unto meate. 



" The other sorts are not used in Cookery that I know, but serve to bee 

 eaten at pleasvire; but in regard they are not so tart before maturity as the 

 former, they are not put to those uses they be." 



We have in the gooseberry an imusually good opporttinity to trace 

 the evolution of a fruit brought under the hand of man from the wild. To 

 see satisfactorily how the gooseberry has been improved we must quote at 



