THE GOOSEBERRY. 559 



Mode of Bearing, Pruning, and Training. The fruit is produced 

 on the shoots of the preceding year, and on spurs from shoots of three 

 or more years' growth. The largest fruit is always produced on the 

 wood of the preceding year, and as the spurs grow old, and increase 

 in size, the fruit becomes smaller, though it increases in quantity ; 

 which, indeed, is the case with all fruit grown on spurs. The goose- 

 berry requires to be pruned in early summer, because in general it 

 produces more shoots than can be allowed to remain, without depriving 

 the fruit-bearing branches of a due share of light and air. All super- 

 fluous shoots, therefore, should be stopped with the finger and thumb 

 when they are between one inch and two inches in length, and again 

 stopped at the second joint, when they have made a second growth. 

 A common fault in gardens is to allow the shoots of gooseberries and 

 currants to grow nearly their full length before they are thinned out, 

 in consequence of which the fruit is deprived of its due share of 

 nourishment, light, and air, and more strength is communicated to the 

 root than is required for the due adjustment of the root and top. 

 Hence, in almost all gardens, we find the gooseberry and currant 

 bushes far too luxuriant. All the training the gooseberry, treated as 

 a bush, requires, is to stop or prune it in such a manner as to keep the 

 bush rather open in the centre, and the branches all radiating out- 

 wards from the stem, or from the main branches ; crossing one 

 another as little as possible, and when they do cross, never touching. 

 On espaliers they should be trained in the perpendicular manner ; and 

 if only two upright shoots are trained from every plant, the trellis or 

 espalier rail will be the sooner covered. Where plants are in abun- 

 dance, which they may in many cases be by raising them from cuttings 

 at home, only one upright shoot may be trained from each cutting, 

 and these being planted at one foot apart, the trellis or rail, if not 

 more than five feet high, will be completely covered in three years. 

 If the Champagne or Ironmonger is planted, and the plants, when cut- 

 tings, allowed to make only one vertical shoot from the terminal bud, 

 then after they have made two years' growth against the espalier rail, 

 they will have reached its summit, and may be spurred in afterwards 

 from within a foot of the ground to the top of the rail. If a double 

 espalier rail is used, a very handsome gooseberry hedge will thus be 

 formed, which will bear abundance of fruit of the best flavour, because 

 freely exposed to the light and air, for twelve or fifteen years. 



The growers of gooseberries for prizes necessarily take much more 

 pains in pruning and training than the gardeners of private gentlemen. 

 The plants are raised from cuttings in the usual manner, and in the 

 autumn of the first year they are transplanted to the soil and situation 

 where they are to produce their fruit. This is, if possible, a deep, 

 cool, rich, marly loam, moderately moist, at the bottom of such a 

 slope as shall at once produce shelter from the highest winds of the 

 locality, and ensure a certain degree of coolness, and supply of moisture, 

 from what may be termed the insensible escape of the rain which has 

 sunk into the soil in the upper part of the declivity. Being planted, 

 the next step is to prepare for pruning and training, by procuring a 



