248 



TJic Canadian Hortic?utnn'st. 



SUCCESS WITH ENGLISH GOOSEBERRIES. 



i\ J R. EDITOR,— Thegooseberr}- 

 iVl season being now nearly over, 

 I shall give your readers a few words 

 regarding some experiments which I 

 have been making with English varie- 

 ties of that fruit. I have been testing 

 forty different kinds, and am con- 

 vinced that Avith generous treatment 

 and careful pruning, with a view to 

 renewing the wood, the only thing to 

 be dreaded is overbearing. If the 

 bushes are not allowed to rest, by 

 stripping them almost entirely of 

 their fruit, at least once in eight 

 years, there is a great likelihood of 

 the bushes becoming exhausted, and 

 eventually dying. This has been 

 my experience wath the Crown Bob, 

 \Miitesmith, Red Warrington and 

 Ocean Wave, which I have grown 

 for the last fifteen years. 



During that time I have had an 

 abundant crop every year, except 

 with the exhausted bushes, and have 

 had no trace of mildew on any of the 

 English sorts. I feel persuaded that 

 on a clay or clay loam soil with 

 proper care mildew need not be 

 feared; on sandy soil or a sandy 

 loam I have no experience and cannot 

 speak. 



I know of no other small fruit 

 which will give such abundant crops 

 or so well reward the labor of its 

 cultivator. 



I am in favor of training the bushes 

 to a single stem of about eight inches 

 from the surface of the ground to 

 where they branch out. I have tried 

 stems fifteen inches high but found 



the plants were not so vigorous in 

 growth, did not bear so heavily, and 

 were not so long-lived. The nearer 

 the ground, while securing a free 

 circulation of air under the branches, 

 the better. 



The severe frost this spring caused 

 a good many of the blossoms and 

 parti}- formed fruit to drop off, and 

 the intense heat in July injured 

 many more, causing them to whiten 

 on the side exposed to the rays of 

 the sun, and by and by to drop off, 

 while others not so badly scalded by 

 the sun were so injured that the}^ 

 did not mature properly. The In 

 dustr}- suffered most from the heat. 

 Fully one-half dropped oft' and the 

 remainder were so injured that I 

 failed to get a single good berry. 

 My experience of this variety leads 

 me to believe that it has been 

 greatl}' over-estimated. It has not 

 yielded such large crops nor is it 

 equal in quality to the most of 

 the English sorts which I have 

 tested. 



The following tabulated statement, 

 which will be found on the next page, 

 is the result of my experience : — 



The others, I have not their names 

 or have not sufiiciently tried them 

 to decide on their merits. 



In conclusion I would suggest that 

 some of our hybridizers would be 

 rewarded by hybridizing with the 

 pollen of some good English variety 

 on the best American, and would 

 confer a great boon upon those 

 whose soil is sand}'. 



