28 GROSSULARIE^ 



Currant and Gooseberry (Pdbes). 

 * Flowers 1 — 3 together ; branches thm-ny. 

 1. Gooseberry {B. grossuldria). — Leaves rounded and lobed ; flower- 

 stalks short, hairy, 1 — 3 flowered, with a pair of small bracts ; thorns either 

 single, or two or three together. Among the many kinds of Gooseberry 

 which are cultivated in our gardens, few are preferred for their fruits to the 

 varieties of this common species. The plant grows in many woods and 

 hedges, though it seems to be truly wild only in the north of England. 

 Rough and smooth, green, red, and yellow Gooseberries may, many of them, 

 claim this common species as their parent. From very early times the Goose- 

 berry has been much cultivated in this country, and it was by our forefathers 

 called Feaberry. Mr. T. Hudson Turner says : " The earliest notice of the 

 Gooseberry which I have found is in the fourth year of Edward I., 1276, 

 when plants of this genus were purchased for the king's garden at West- 

 minster ; but, as it is an indigenous fruit, we may infer that it was known at 

 a remote time, though probably only in a wild state." Tusser, who wrote 

 his work on Husbandry in the time of Henry VHI., says : — 



' • The barbery, respis, and gooseberry too, 

 Look now to be planted as other things doe ;' 



and Lord Bacon, writing about fifty years after Tusser, says : " The earliest 

 fruits are strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, and corrans ; and after them, 

 early apples, early pears, apricots, and rasps ; and after them, damisons, and 

 most kind of plums, peaches, etc. ; and the latest are apples, wardens, grapes, 

 nuts, quinces, sloes, brierberries, medlers, services, cornelians, etc." The 

 partiality of the English for Gooseberries is commented on in the French 

 " Encyclopedie des Sciences." One of the writers of the work says: "A 

 great number of gooseberries are consumed in Holland and in England ; and 

 one sees in London, during the season of these fruits, nothing but gooseberry 

 pies. One must admit, however, that this fruit is well adapted to ameliorate 

 the muriatic and alkaline acrimony of the English diet. In France it is only 

 women and children, or country people, who eat gooseberries." One reason, 

 however, for their being less eaten may be found in the inferiority of the 

 fruits when cultivated in France, or, indeed, in any warm climate. Even the 

 English Gooseberry is inferior to the fruit of Scotland ; and, provided there 

 is warmth enough for ripening, the flavour seems to increase with the cold- 

 ness of the climate where it is grown. In the south of Europe the fruit is 

 so small and tasteless that it is quite neglected. 



In England every cottage-garden can boast its Gooseberry -bush, and, as 

 Bishop Mant has said : — 



' ' 'Tis pleasant on each hardy tree, 

 Currant or prickly Gooseberry, 

 Along the hawthorn's level lino, 

 Or bush of fragrant eglantine, 

 Bramble or pithy elder pale, 

 Or larch or woodbine's twisted trail, 

 Or willow lithe, a flush of green 

 To note, with light transparent screen 

 At intervals the branches hide, 

 Of vegetable gauze, till wide 

 It spreads, and thickens to the eye, 

 A close-wove veil of deeper dye." 



