214 THE GOOSEBERRY. 



quently seen in a very wretched state the fruit poor and small, 

 and covered with mildew. This arises partly from ignorance 

 of a proper mode of cultivation, but chiefly from the sorts grown 

 being very inferior ones, always much liable to this disease. 



PROPAGATION. Gooseberry plants should only be raised from 

 cuttings. New varieties are of course raised from seed, but no 

 one here will attempt to do what, under more favourable cir- 

 cumstances, the Lancashire growers can do so much better. In 

 preparing cuttings select the strongest and straightest young 

 shoots of the current year, at the end of October (or very early 

 in the ensuing spring ;) cut out all the buds that you intend to 

 go below the ground (to prevent future suckers,) and plant the 

 cuttings in a deep rich soil, on the north side of a fence, or in 

 some shaded border. The cuttings should be inserted six inch- 

 es deep, and from three to six or eight inches should remain 

 above ground. The soil should be pressed very firmly about 

 the cuttings, and, in the case of autumn planting, it should be 

 examined in the spring, to render it firm again should the cut- 

 ting have been raised by severe frost. After they have become 

 well rooted generally in a year's time they may be trans- 

 planted to the borders, where they are finally to remain. 



CULTIVATION. The gooseberry in our climate is very impa- 

 tient of drought, and we have uniformly found that the best soil 

 for it is a deep strong loam, or at least whatever may be the 

 soil, and it will grow in a great variety, it should always be 

 deep if not naturally so, it should be made deep by trenching 

 and manuring. It is the most common error to plant this fruit 

 shrub under the branches of other trees for the sake of their 

 shade as it always renders the fruit inferior in size and fla- 

 vour, and more likely to become mouldy. On the contrary, we 

 would always advise planting in an open border, as if the 

 soil is sufficiently deep, the plants will not suffer from dryness, 

 and should it unfortunately be of a dry nature, it may be ren- 

 dered less injurious by covering the ground under the plants 

 with straw or litter. In any case a rich soil is necessary, and 

 as the gooseberry is fond of manure a pretty heavy top-dressing 

 should be dug in every year, around bearing plants. For a 

 later crop a few bushes may be set on the north side of a fence 

 or wall. 



For the gooseberry, regular and pretty liberal pruning is ab- 

 solutely necessary. Of course no suckers should be allowed 

 to grow. In November the winter pruning should be perform- 

 ed. The leaves now being off it is easy to see what proportion 

 of the new as well as old wood may be taken away ; and we will 

 here remark that it is quite impossible to obtain fine gooseber- 

 ries here, or any where, without a very thorough thinning out 

 of the branches. As a general rule, it may safely be said that 

 one half of the head, including old and young branches (more 



