GARDENING FoR ALL. 97 
An occasional dressing of lime is beneficial to currants, 
and it is said common salt is good for black currants, at the 
rate of one ounce to the square yard. 
GOOSEBERRIESB.— (Rives Grossularia/. 
Gooseberry trees are easily propagated from cuttings, 
like currant trees. Choose straight, firm shoots about fifteen 
inches long, and as thick as a slate pencil. Shorten the top 
a little, remove all but four or five buds, and also the spines 
from the lower part of the cutting. 
Plant the cuttings firmly in lines or rows, as recom- 
mended for currants, and give them the same treatment 
during the first year. At the end of the second year the 
young trees will be ready for planting into their permanent 
positions. 
Gooseberry trees are seldom grown in other than bush 
form, but they are both ornamental and fruitful when grown 
to wires—espalier or grid-iron form—alongside walks and 
paths; and trees so trained have two distinctly practical 
advantages, viz., the fruit is easily gathered, and the trees 
are more easily pruned. 
Pruning gooseberry trees is seldom a pleasant employ- 
ment, but there are right and wrong methods of doing this as 
in doing everything else. The task is much easier when 
commenced and carried through in the right way. The 
wrong method is frequently the most difficult of execution 
and the most harmful to the tree and its owner, and his 
pocket. 
If all the young shoots of a healthy and vigorous tree are 
persistently pruned to a half or a third their length, that tree 
will sooner or later be either a thicket of useless and barren 
wood, or fruitless through sheer decrepitude. 
The right method of procedure in pruning a gooseberry 
tree is, first to entirely remove any branch that is too near the 
ground ; then to remove the shoots or branches that cross 
each other, and those that are overcrowding the tree. In 
cutting out these branches, care ought to be exercised to make 
smooth cuts in order that they may heal up quickly, and not 
allow water to lodge upon the surface of the wounds. Also, 
no ‘*snags” should be left, but the cut be made close up to 
the branch from which the misplaced one is being removed. 
