jQjy 80, 1868. 1 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOOLTORE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



71 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE HOT SEASON OVER 

 THE GOOSEBERRY. 



HE present season promises to test the capa- 

 .jH. bilities of certain plants and fruits whose 

 well or ill doing has been generally ascribed 

 to the influence of climate, for a summer 

 approaching those of continental Europe and 

 America is hurrying things on more rapidly 

 than we have been accustomed to see in 

 former years. That there are certain plants 

 and fruits wliich seem to benefit by this ra- 

 pidity of growth, or rather of maturity, there can be no 

 doubt, but whether the benefits so gained are not more 

 than counterbalanced by the injuries that others suffer is 

 a question which need not be entered into here. Rather 

 let us examine into the conditions of one of our most 

 popular hardy fruits, and see in what way it has been 

 acted upon by the diy hot weather of the last six weeks 

 or more. 



The Gooseberry is admitted to be an especially British 

 fruit, owing its present enlarged size and good flavour to 

 the care and perseverance of our ancestors, who have from 

 the small, wild, worthless-looking, spiny shrub furnished us 

 with a plant producing fruit of large size and good flavour, 

 and possessing as much diversity of colom- as the Plum. 

 It does not appear, however, that the Gooseberry out of 

 Great Britain is held in such great esteem as it is \vith us, 

 and the inference drawn would be that no other climate 

 suits it so well. This view was taken by the late Mr. 

 London neai'ly half a century ago, and, more than that, he 

 pointed out what part of the empire produced the best 

 subsequent experience has proved that he was in the 

 main right, and the present summer confirms the correct- 

 ness of his views. On further inquii-y it will be discovered 

 that other things as well as the Gooseberry are influenced 

 by a scorching season, so as to become less valuable 

 than they are in ordinary years. This and other incon- 

 veniences, as we are often tempted to call them, may 

 reconcile us to dull and showery summers when we see 

 and feel the effects of bright continental ones like the 

 present, which is seriously aft'ecting many things that will 

 be missed hereafter, and at the present time is inflicting 

 an amount of injury upon us more than equivalent to the 

 advantages it brings. 



Confining my remarks to the Gooseberry, let us see how 

 it has fared with the most extensively-cultivated of all our 

 hardy fruits, for there are few cottage gardens without a 

 Gooseberry bush, while it is equally valuable in a royal 

 garden. In general we shall find that the Gooseberry 

 crop of 18HW was a good, if not an abundan*. one, and it 

 was so early that a neighbour of mine sent scleral bushels 

 to market on the last day of April, and I do not think he 

 was first. 



Gooseberries have been plentiful, and the trees in 

 general free from the caterpillar, but occasional visitations 

 of it are to be met with, and some little time ago I was 

 grieved on passing a plantation of about four acres of 

 this fruit to find scarcely a leaf on the trees, the attack 

 No. 883.— Vol. XV., New Series. 



being the second in the season, when the caterpillars are 

 much more difficult to conquer than in the first assault, 

 for then hand-picking does much towards thinning them. 

 The trees, as I liave said, were almost leafless, and the 

 fruit all but useless. Now, when it is understood that the 

 occupier last year estimated his crop on the four acres at 

 twenty tons of Gooseberries, it is easy to conceive what a 

 loss must have been caused by the caterpillar, an d that, 

 too, with one of the hardiest of our hardy fruits. It 

 would be wrong to blame the cultivator in this instance, 

 for where it can be done he has spared no expense in 

 picking ofi' these pernicious insects, and I will not say how 

 many gallons have been gathered otf his grounds in some 

 seasons, for he has other fruits as well as Gooseberries, 

 but the quantity seems astonishing. 



I would ask all who have noticed the ripening of Goose- 

 berries this season on dry soils and in the broiling sun wluch 

 we have had, if tliey have not noticed a great deficiency 

 in flavour ? I have certainly thought so. The trees are 

 healthy, the crop good, and apparently it ripened properly, 

 but evidently the season has been too forward for it, and 

 the lack of moisture in the atmosphere has also atfected it : 

 for when we had a little rain on the night of July l:ith, the 

 fruit being then fully ripe, I expected, in accordance with 

 the experience of former years, that the berries would burst 

 with the pent-up luscious juice. Such, however, has not 

 been the case, not one Gooseberry that I have met \vith has 

 done so ; on the contrary, the skins seem to toughen, and 

 the pulp by degrees to tiu-n soui", the whole fruit having 

 less inclination to drop oft' than in former years. Now, 

 is tills not a proof that the season has been too hot for the 

 Gooseberry? In flavour the fruit has never approached 

 even mediocrity, and I should tliink that in general it 

 has been somewhat undersized. 



The want of the Gooseberry has evidently been those 

 occasional showers which our British climate in the ma- 

 jority of seasons aflbrds, whUe in the case of the present 

 summer even the assistance of the ordinary dews has 

 been wanting, for we have scarcely had dew all the 

 season, and very often of late a withering north-east wind 

 has been blowing all night. Since the 2!lth of May up to 

 the present time (.July 17 th), we have scarcely had any 

 rain, not so much as 1 inch in depth all over the surface. 

 Such extreme dryness is, in my opinion, the cause of the 

 Gooseberry lacking flavour, while, possibly, such_ fruits as 

 Peaches and some others may in this respect be improved 

 by the drought. 



The Gooseberry, being a native fruit, does not require a 

 Persian or Australian summer to ripen its fruit in, and the 

 correctness of the opinion of a garden authority of the last 

 generation, that better Gooseberries are grown in Scotland 

 and the north of England than around London, seems to 

 be confirmed this year ; at aU events I would like to have 

 the opinion of others on this matter. We may feel some 

 anxiety for our other fruits as well, for they may be 

 affected in a similar manner by the hot summer we are 

 passing through, and in the end pi-esent us with fruits 

 resembling those of southern Eiu-ope or other warm coun- 

 tries. Should this be the case, our Apples will be more 



No. lOSi.— Vol. XL., Old Series. 



