386 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



The Growing of Gooseberries 



R. B, WHYTe:, OTTAWA, ONT. 



GOOSEBERRIES are best planted in 

 the fall and should be put out about 

 five feet apart. If you g^t your plants in 

 the fall, you can either heel them in then 

 and plant in the spring, or you can pTantjj 

 them then. 



In propagating they are very easy to 

 layer ; but to get the best plants they are bet- 

 ter grown from cuttings. I have never suc- 

 ceeded in growing cuttings out of doors, 

 but I can in the greenhouse where there is 

 bottom heat. Last year I had some given 

 me that had come out from Ireland, and 

 they 'looked as dry as sticks. I sent them 

 to the greenhouse, and six or seven weeks 

 later each was making a nice plant. I put 

 them in the garden and they have made 

 splendid plants ; so that it is apparently easy 

 to grow them in the greenhouse. 



As to the length of time gooseberries will 

 grow, I believe the record in the old country 

 is 40 years' continuous fruiting. I don't 

 know if that is to be the record in this coun- 

 try or not, but I have had some plants bear- 

 ing twelve years, which is a pretty good 

 record. As to soil, tkere is no use trying 

 to grow foreign gooseberries in gravelly or 

 sandy soil. You must have a rich, heavy 

 clay loam, and it must be well drained and 

 not be a stiff clay. The surface must al- 

 ways be kept open and not allowed to get 

 baked or hard. 



The chief difficulty with sandy or light 

 soil is that the roots of the plant get over- 

 heated and are practically burned. You 

 cannot grow gooseberries down south at all. 

 As to moisture, gooseberries must have a lot 

 of it. If water is scarce, a good substitute 

 is a cut straw mulch. Spread it on the 

 ground two or three inches thick, and it 

 keeps the ground cool and moist. 



The question of pruning is simple 

 enough. With your finger and thumb 



pinch out any shoot which is getting a lit- 

 tle stronger than the rest. If you make 

 your bushes too open you let in too much 

 sun, and if you don't make them open 

 enough the berries are difficult to pick and 

 you are more apt to have mildew. It is 

 necessary, now and then, to cut out one of 

 the old branches and let its place be taken 

 by new wood. It is the two-year-old and 

 three-year-old wood that bear the largest 

 and finest berries. 



The best time for pruning is early in Sep- 

 tember. It is a great waste to allow your 

 plants to set fruit buds along all your wood, 

 three-fourths of which you don't want at all. 

 By cutting off all the wood you don't want 

 to bear fruit, you are making the fruit buds 

 strong and vigorous and ready to bear fruit 

 next year. As a proof that this theory is 

 right, I may say we never have any off 

 years. 



Preserving Currants 



MISS M. U. WATSON, LADY PRINCIPAL MAC- 

 DONALD INSTITUTE, GUELPH, ONT. 



^"^HE common red currant may be pre- 

 A served in the ordinary household in 

 three ways, viz., by canning, by preserving, 

 and by making into jelly. In the first, the 

 fruit is sterilized by boiHng, put into steril- 

 ized jars, and the jars made air tight, while 

 the contents are still sterile. Sugar is 

 cooked with the fruit or not according to 

 preference. The essential thing is to steril- 

 ize everything and thus prevent any access 

 of air. 



In preserving, the fruit is boiled with an 

 equal weight of sugar, long enough to 

 thicken the mixture somewhat, and is 

 usually put away in air tight jars. This, 

 however, is not essential, as the sugar is 

 sufficient to prevent moulding. In jelly 

 making the fruit juice is expressed, com- 

 bined with its own weight of sugar, and 

 boiled three or twenty minutes. 



