The Gooseberry. 143 



founded as far back as the year of Waterloo. The 

 growers, the arts of growing, and the shows themselves 

 furnish illustrations of character alike original and enter- 

 taining. The men who devote their energies to the 

 work are almost exclusively of the same race as those 

 who, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, began 

 to render South Lancashire so noted for its " naturalists 

 in humble life," and who, while occupied as hand-loom 

 weavers, earned so much fame as cultivators of various 

 kinds of choice flowers. Their number has diminished 

 under the influence of the Steam-engine, the introduction 

 of which induced a change no less great in the social 

 condition of the Lancashire operatives than in the 

 complexion of their manufactures. There are plenty 

 living, nevertheless, who inherit the taste and the 

 enthusiasm of the patriarchs, and as far as the scope 

 permits, the old spirit is keen as ever. In the bygones 

 the pursuit before us carried with it no slight dignity. 

 Southey, in the " Doctor," quotes an obituary notice in 

 an old Manchester newspaper, of some one who "bore 

 a severe illness with Christian fortitude and resignation, 

 and was much esteemed among the class of Gooseberry- 

 growers^ (p. 348, ed. 1849). The prime object with 

 these cottage-cultivators is not refined flavour, nor yet a 

 plentiful crop. The prizes go to the biggest and heaviest 

 individual berries. To secure triumph it is enough that 

 a single fruit outweighs all rivals. Upon this one great 

 end the grower sets his whole heart; to the attainment 

 of this he devotes all his thoughts and energies; he 



