Gathering and Marketing 291 



because done by removing wood, instead of individual 

 fruits. It is well to keep this fact in mind in all prun- 

 ing operations. 



Various methods of training have been reported. In 

 some cases they have been trained as single stems and tied 

 to stakes; in others they have been made to cover arbors 

 by carefully training up shoots at given distances apart. 

 Some very remarkable bushes have been reported. In 

 the tree form they have been said to reach a height of 

 sixteen feet, and others have been trained as standards 

 with clear stems five feet high. In the " Transactions of 

 the London Horticultural Society," Vol. V, p. 490, a plant 

 is reported which was forty-six years old, measuring 

 twelve yards in circumference and which had produced 

 several pecks of fruit annually for thirty years. Another, 

 thirty years old, was trained to a building, and measured 

 53 feet 4 inches from one extremity to the other. This 

 bore four or five pecks of fruit annually. 



GATHERING AND MARKETING 



Picking gooseberries is difficult on account of the thorns. 

 The Downing, our best well-tested variety, is one of the 

 worst in this respect. This feature does much to check 

 increased cultivation of the gooseberry. Vigorous pruning, 

 to keep the bushes thin and open, will materially aid in 

 the matter, and the picker soon learns to avoid too careless 

 contact. Another method of circumventing the difficulty 

 is possible, from the fact that the berries are marketed when 

 green and hard. This consists in wearing thick leather 

 gloves and in stripping the berries from the branches. 



