122 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



which you raise : let them be selected of the best 

 sorts, and of sufficient variety. The slips must be 

 of the last year's growth, cut to the length of nine 

 inches, and having every bud carefully cut off with 

 the knife, except three or four next to the top or 

 upper extremity of the slip ; for it is better to have 

 the natural top of the slip cut off by a few inches, as 

 , the buds are there weaker and too frequent. If care 

 be not taken to extract the buds from that part of 

 the slip which is inserted in the ground they will 

 become suckers, which cannot afterwards be easily 

 got rid of. Let the slips so prepared be set in rich 

 border ground, to a depth equal to half their length, 

 and in rows one foot apart. The sooner that this is 

 done after the fall of the leaf the better : the ground 

 should be kept clean and stirred up between the 

 rows ; and in the course of two years you may thus 

 have an abundant supply for a new gooseberry plan- 

 tation. 



If the ground on which they are to be set require 

 trenching, it should undergo that operation a year or 

 two before, in order that the new soil which is turned 

 up may be enriched and incorporated with the old : 

 and well is it worth while to be at so much pains, as 

 the making of such a plantation, if rightly done, will 

 only once be required in a lifetime. The young 

 plants may either be placed at their proper distances 

 of four or five feet in all directions, allowing some 

 low growing crops to occupy the intervening space ; 

 or they may be set twice as thick, with a view to 

 subsequent thinning as they increase in size. In 

 pruning, endeavour always to give the tree a proper 

 balance on its own stem, and allow no branch to ac- 



