56 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



FALLING OF GOOSEBERRIES. 



BY STANLEY SPILLETT, FRUIT EXPERIMENTER, NANTYR. 



IR, I will answer with your permission 

 through the medium of the Cana- 

 dian Horticulturist some of the 

 questions I have already answered 

 individually by mail, and this work I am 

 pleased to do at any time for any reason. 



(I). Respecting the Premature Falling of 

 the Fruit of Certain Varieties of Gooseberries. 

 This falling is certainly becoming a serious 

 matter with some varieties. We tried this 

 season to ascertain as correctly as possible 

 what proportion of fruit fell off. Downing 

 and Pearl gave six quarts of fruit per bushel 

 with two quarts each of fallen fruit ; Red 

 Jacket gave seven and one-half quarts per 

 bushel and two quarts of fallen fruit ; Cham- 

 pion gave ten quarts of fruit with very few 

 fallen berries. I at first attributed this fall- 

 ing to the berries having been stung by a 

 moth, or rather the deposition of an &^^ in 

 the berry by a moth or fly. Close observa- 

 tion however revealed the fact that stung 

 berries turn red before falling and a grub is 

 found in the fallen berry. The greater part 

 of the fallen fruit this year was just as hard 

 and clean and as fully developed as any of 

 the fruit remaining on the bush and no 

 grubs in it either, so the grub theory will 

 not account for it. Some of my correspon- 

 dents say that the fruit scales with the heat 

 before falling. 



Our bushes being on a clayey soil, made 

 rich with stable manure, the foliage fully 

 protects the fruit and it is only an occasional 

 exposed branch that suffers from sun scald 

 and yet the berries tumble. 



One correspondent says, " My bushes are 

 on sand and fully half the fruit has fallen." 

 This correspondent attributes the falling to 



sun scald and the scalding to poor foliage. 

 This gentleman's experience fortifies the 

 opinion I had previously formed that this 

 falling is due to the bushes setting more 

 fruit than they can carry in a dry time. One 

 dry season here a fine young apple orchard 

 in grass (hay) did the same thing. This 

 overloading will also affect the foliage, 

 especially on sandy soil. 



The gooseberry has two well defined and 

 separate layers of roots, one layer at what 

 was the end of the cutting, the other layer 

 near the surface of the ground. It is this 

 upper layer that causes deep cultivation 

 near the bush to be so harmful. Indeed a 

 scuffler is an impertinence among gooseberry 

 bushes except it be one width of the scuffler 

 up the centre of the rows set six feet apart. 

 I do all cultivation under and immediately 

 about the bush with a long handle shovel, 

 ground sharp, selecting one well set down 

 on handle. This is a good shove hoe, 



I can account for the Champion not losing 

 its fruit only by its tremendous vigor. One 

 bush will send up from a hundred to a hun- 

 dred and fifty suckers two feet long, in one 

 season. 



Thinning will no doubt be a remedy for 

 this falling if my contention is correct, but 

 where one has hundreds or even thousands 

 of bushes this is not practicable. I have 

 been trying to accomplish the same thing 

 by pruning, and it is certain that larger fruit 

 has been the result and less mildew another; 

 this may be because the spraying mixture 

 can be got to all parts of the bush, but one 

 thing is certain, when mildew makes its 

 appearance the fruit on sheltered branches 

 suffers most. 



