THE GOOSEBEBRY AND CTTEBANT. 149 



produce, when sold in lots, as much as 32. Greater 

 profit though than can be summed up in pounds or guineas 

 of any amount must accrue to the worthy weaver whose 

 monotonous loom-labours are enlivened with verdant 

 visions of a favourite plant ; who devotes his leisure to 

 a recreation necessitating the study of vegetable life and 

 its laws, and who, leaving cruel or debasing sports to 

 workmen of lower tastes, only vies with his fellows in 

 the innocent and useful rivalry as to which can bring to 

 greatest perfection one of the products of their native 

 land. All honour, then, to the fair fruit whose charms 

 have proved so powerful an attraction to this class of the 

 community, and exercised so beneficial an influence upon 

 them. It has called forth, tooAa literature of its own, 

 and besides occupying a larger snare of various gardening 

 publications and local newspapers, a work especially de- 

 voted to it appears every year, the Gooseberry Book being 

 one of the regular Manchester " annuals." Nor is the 

 taste for gooseberry-growing confined to a single county, 

 but has spread, in company with the weavers, over a large 

 tract of country, and zealous cultivators may be found 

 throughout Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire. And 

 though weight alone is the al] -important desideratum with 

 these northern amateurs, and the greatest bulk is hardly 

 compatible with fulness of flavour, their efforts have 

 shown the capabilities of the fruit. Through their par- 

 tiality the attention of others has been drawn to it, and 

 those who have been willing to sacrifice a little of its 

 bulk in order to attain excellence in other particulars, 

 have succeeded in combining greatness with goodness, 

 and produced that fruit, desirable in every respect, which 

 now adorns our summer dessert, and the enjoyment of 

 which may therefore be enhanced by the consideration 

 that, comparing it with feeble foreign growths, the Eng- 

 lishman may point to his gooseberry as he does to his 

 government, and exclaim with honest pride, " I have 

 made it what it is ! " And if any proud spirit should 

 think scorn of the work, and deem the object too petty 

 for attention, the words of the poet may convey to such 

 a lesson of much-needed wisdom, for though not written 



