132 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



He says, in his account of the latter fruit, " We have also 

 in our London gardens another sort altogether without 

 prickes, whose fruit is Verie small, lesser by much than 

 the common kinde, but of a perfect red colour, wherein 

 it differeth from the rest of his kinde." 



Lord Bacon, who wrote about fifty years after Tusser, 

 has noticed them : he says, " the earliest fruits are straw- 

 berries, cherries, gooseberries, corrans, and after them 

 early apples, early pears, apricots, rasps, and after them 

 damisons, and most kinds of plums, peaches, &c. ; and 

 the latest are apples, wardens, grapes, nuts, quinces, 

 almonds, sloes, brierberries, hops, medlers, services, cor- 

 nelians, &c." 



Worlidge speaks of the currant in his Vinetum Britan- 

 nicum, which was published in the year 1675, wherein he 

 says, " the English curran, once in esteem, but now cast 

 out of all good gardens, as is the black, which was never 

 worth any thing. The white curran was not long since 

 in most esteem, until the red Dutch curran became 

 native to our soil, which is also improved in some rich 

 moist grounds, that it hath gained a higher name of the 

 greatest red Dutch curran. These are the only fruits that 

 are fit to be planted and propagated for wine, and for the 

 conservatory." 



Coles, the herbarist, tells us, that in his time, (1657) the 

 white currant was called Gozell in Kent. 



Currants are now a fruit of great importance in this 

 country : they are so easily propagated, that every cottage 

 gardener can rear them ; they thrive in almost any soil 

 and situation, even under the shade of orchard-trees, but 

 the fruit is best when exposed to the open air, and upon 

 a light loamy soil ; and they are likewise so regular in 

 bearing, that it is seldom they are injured by the weather. 

 At the dessert, they are greatly esteemed, being found 

 cooling and grateful to the stomach; and they are as 



