396 BUSH-FBUITS 



HISTORY AND FUTURE 



Like the currant, the gooseberry appears not to have 

 been known to the ancients, and it is uncertain when 

 it first began to receive garden culture. Although long 

 common among the hedges and woods of England, it is 

 thought by most authors not to have been indigenous. 

 It is reported, as first mentioned by British authors, 

 about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Geo. W. 

 Johnson* states that Tusser, in his "Five Hundred 

 Points of Good Husbandry," published during 1557, 

 mentions the gooseberry as then among garden fruits. 

 Johnson's edition of Gerarde's Herbal, published in 

 1636, says: "There be divers sorts of the gooseberries, 

 some greater, others lesse; some round, others long, 

 and some of a red color. * * * The sorts of goose- 

 berries are these: the long greene, the great yellowish, 

 the blew, the great round red, the long red, and the 

 prickl}^ gooseberr}^" The further statement is made 

 that "These plants doe grow in London gardens and 

 elsewhere in great abundance." Under the heading of 

 names, the statement is that "this shrub hath no name 

 among old Writers, who as we deeme knew it not, or else 

 esteemed it not; the later writers call it in Latine, 

 Grossularia, and oftentimes of the berries, TJva Crispa, 

 Uva spina, TJva spmella, and Uva Crispina; in French, 

 Groiselles; in English, Gooseberry, Gooseberry bush 

 and Fea-berrj^ bush in Cheshire, my native country." 

 This latter name was also known in other parts of Eng- 

 land, being abbreviated into Feabes or Fapes in some 



*The Cucumber and Gooseberry, p. 103. 



