306 Report of the Horticulturist op the 



siders a full crop. Were the plants set 5 x 5 ft, an acre would 

 contain 1,742 plants, and at the rate of yield which was realized 

 from these plants would produce 5,143]- lbs., or a little more than 

 two and a half tons per acre. Mr. E. B. Lewis, Lockport, N. Y., 

 reports even better results than this with the American Red 

 Jacket. From an acre of stooled plants, averaging about three 

 bearing canes per plant, he reports a yield of four tons of fruit. 

 For profit he would plant but three kinds, namely. Downing, 

 Pearl and Red Jacket. 



Botanical Features of the Species from which Cultivated 

 Gooseberries are Derived. 



Susceptibility to mildew. — The one great hindrance to the culti- 

 vation of European gooseberries in this country is their suscepti- 

 bility to attacks of the mildew, Sphwrotheca Mors-uvce. Figure 4 

 plate I shows a bi-anch of mildewed fruit of Industry. From the 

 standpoint of the American fruit grower gooseberries fall into 

 two classes, namely, those which suffer from the mildew and 

 those which do not. The former class includes all European 

 varieties and their American grown seedlings, or, in other words, 

 all varieties of the species Rihes Grossularia, L. The latter class 

 includes the cultivated varieties of the native American species 

 oxyacanthoides, L. and Gynoshati, Ij. and some hybrids between 

 them and the European species. 



New or little known sorts are from time to time advertised 

 and urged for planting. Since many of them belong to the Euro- 

 pean class which, in this country, has always been subject to severe 

 injury from attacks of the mildew, and which no well informed 

 fruit grower cares to plant extensively unless he is prepared to 

 fight that disease, it is important that nurserymen and fruit 

 growers learn to distinguish the European species from the two 

 American species from which cultivated varieties have been de- 

 veloped, namely, B. oxyacanthoides, L. and R. Gynoshati, L. 



8ome characters of the European gooseberry, R. Gi'ossularia . — 

 During the four hundred years or more that the European goose- 

 berry has been cultivated hundreds of named varieties of that 



