31 8 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



main part due to the continued selection of seedlings which have been 

 found to be more and more capable of yielding such extraordinary fruit. 

 Assiu-edly the 'Highwayman' in 1817 could not have produced fruit like 

 that of the ' Roaring Lion ' in 1825; nor could the ' Roaring Lion,' though 

 it was grown by many persons in many places, gain the supreme triumph 

 achieved in 1852 by the 'London' Gooseberry." 



AMERICAN GOOSEBERRIES 



The gooseberry is not a popular fruit in America. The climate is not 

 favorable to the delectable European varieties and fungi take so great toll 

 that where climate may favor fungi forbid. Moreover, the abundance of 

 bramble fruits, strawberries, and early tree fniits in the season for goose- 

 berries lessens the need of an additional fruit for the diet of the season. Nur- 

 serymen, also, with curious persistence, seem favorable only to the small- 

 fruited and inferior Houghton and Downing, wretched substitutes for the 

 large-fruited varieties which it has been demonstrated over and over again 

 might as easily be grown. 



Yet Nature has been lavish in supplying the continent with wild goose- 

 berries. Some one of the several species is to be fotmd in almost every part 

 of this continent where agricultiire prospers. But it is only within recent 

 years that these have been brought to the attention of experimenters. 

 The first gooseberry to be derived from a native species was the Houghton, 

 first recorded in 1847, although it may have been introduced a few years 

 earlier. It is certain that American varieties were grown long before this, 

 however, for in 1839 John J. Thomas,^ then a youth, afterwards to become a 

 leading authority in pomology, wrote: 



" The gooseberry is cultivated with greater care and success in England 

 than elsewhere; and Lindley enumerates 122 varieties, some of which have 

 furnished specimens of single fruit- weighing an ounce and a half. But 

 nearly all the English varieties, and especially those of large size, are wholly 

 unadapted to culture in this cotintry on account of mildew; and neither 

 culture, pruning, nor any other remedy has been found that can be relied 

 on as a remedy. There are some smaller native varieties, cultivated in 

 gardens in this country, which are entirely free from it, and these alone are 

 to be recommended here. Sufficient information however as to their names, 

 has not been obtained for a list to be given. Some of the smaller of the 

 EngUsh varieties, when tested in this climate, may be found worthy of 

 cultivation." 



Yet native gooseberries received scant attention in gardens before 1850. 



' Mon. Gen. Farmer 4: 1 14. 1838. 



