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HOME FRUIT GROWER 



Fig. 90. Every twig of the Gooseberry bush looks like this 



GOOSEBERRY 



If there is any fruit more often mismanaged in America than the 

 Currant that fruit is certainly the Gooseberry (Fig. 90). Like the 

 Currant, its bushes are stuck in out-of-the-way corners and fence rows 

 where they fight as best they can against their arch enemy, "witch," 

 or "quack" grass (Fig. 91), where the worms are encouraged to regale 

 themselves upon the tender foliage, and where the sparse and stunted 

 fruits wave distress signals from their defoliated stems until discovered 

 and rescued. Perhaps the fear that the worms will get them, but 

 more likely because of ignorance on the discoverer's part, the berries 

 are gathered while "green as grass" and made into callow tarts or 

 verdant jam which, however, generally pales to a jaundice yellow. 



In spite of this program 

 of mismanagement these 

 culinary products are 

 fairly edible if the cook 

 understands her business. 

 But why not give the 

 bushes good care and pick 

 the berries when they are 

 more mature, better flav- 

 ored and require less sugar 

 to make them palatable ? 

 Indeed, why not let them 

 ripen fully, as the English 

 do, for eating out of hand ? 



Fig.' 91. -Quack grass is one of the worst enemies of Onl y because people have 

 Currant and Gooseberry bushes become accustomed to 



