272 TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



Some of the fibers divide into several smaller ones. The fibers extend right to the other 

 end of the fruit which terminates in an umbilicus bordered by the cup & the sections of 

 the calyx. The fruit contains a pulp or very soft flesh & from twelve to thirty seeds that 

 are hard, osseous, brown, oval, and a little less blunt at one end than at the other. 



There are several varieties of the gooseberry bush. 1°. One has big round fruit 

 (Fig. 1 .) that is seven to nine lignes in diameter and slightly more in length. A variety of 

 it has large, long fruit (Fig. 2.) that is about nine or ten lignes high by six to eight lignes 

 in diameter. While still green these fruits are used in the kitchen instead of sour grapes, 

 for which they're a poor substitute. When ripe, the skin is yellowish. The juice is slightly 

 sugary, or more likely tasteless, which makes the fruit undesirable. 2°. Another kind has 

 red or dark purple fruit. Its juice is a little like wine. The fruit is suitable for children to 

 eat & for those who don't have refined tastes. 3°. Gooseberry bushes with yellowish 

 leaves or variegated with yellow, those with small fruit, wild varieties, &c. Some of these 

 are appropriate only in ornamental gardens. Others are better left in hedgerows & private 

 estates rather than being transplanted to kitchen gardens. 4°. The gooseberry bush with 

 cluster fruit & the gooseberry bush with flowers that are not hermaphroditic but are male 

 on one individual & female on another. This shrub is more interesting to botanists than it 

 is to growers. 



The entire cultivation of the gooseberry bush consists of planting it in one of the 

 least used spots of a garden. From time to time some shoots are cut off so that it will be 

 less bushy, deterioration won't impair its fruitfulness, & there will be new branches that 

 will grow better-looking fruit. 



