SMALL AND BUSH FRUITS. 



19 



ing plants of great beauty, studded with their high- 

 coloured, prettily formed fruit. Gooseberries confined 

 to single stems— cordons, in fact — planted in rich 

 deep soil, may be trained over arbouries, six feet high, 

 and are admirable for the clothing of dwarf espalier 

 rails and walls. 



Cottages and outbuildings, wooden, wire, and 

 other fences, also furnish excellent positions for the 

 growth of Gooseberries, trained horizontally or ver- 

 tically at from six to nine inches or a foot between 

 the leading branches. Trained over such surfaces, 

 carefully spurred and well fed, it is astonishing how 

 long the Gooseberry will continue to clothe them 

 with verdure and beauty, or cover them with plenty. 

 Numbers of places, too small or cramped for an 

 Apple,, Pear, Cherry, or other fruit-tree, yet afford 

 sufficient space for the growth of one, two, or several 

 Gooseberry- bushes. In the case of cottage walls, 

 a good plan of training can hardly be better described 

 than that of cutting an ordinary and rather freely- 

 grown Gooseberry - bush in two, and backing the 

 divided lines against the walls. From this point 

 almost any course of pruning and training may 

 be adopted — that of close-pruning all the shoots 

 but the leaders in the usual way, or that of merely 

 thinning out the last year's shoots, and leaving many 

 of them at full length, or a foot or more in length. 

 These shoots will bear berries from base to summit 

 the following season, and the yield is enormous. For, 

 instead of a Gooseberry wall, there is a Gooseberry 

 thicket extending a foot, eighteen inches, or even 

 two feet or more from the wall, as the bushes acquire 

 age. Carefully thinned and well fed, such bushes 

 continue to thrive and produce enormous crops for 

 years. Similar methods of free-and-easy training 

 are often adopted on dwarf or other espaliers, the 

 plants being permitted to broaden out a yard or so, 

 instead of a mere double-faced line of fruit and 

 foliage from four to six inches wide. 



There is another method of pruning Gooseberries, 

 which consists in giving them their heads one 

 season, and pruning them back closely the next. 

 In such cases it is wise to divide one's stock of 

 bushes into two equal divisions. Leave the greater 

 portion of the young wood, almost or altogether, 

 full length ; in fact, leave them wild one season. 

 Should the spring prove genial, and the birds for- 

 bearing, the bushes will be covered with fruit from 

 base to summit on the last year's wood. Early in 

 October cut most of these shoots sharp back to 

 within a bud or two of their base-buds. Next year 

 they will yield a small crop of fruit on the old 

 spurs, and a fine crop of young shoots. It is obvious 

 that by having two sets of bushes, one making wood 

 and the other producing heavy crops on that made 

 the year before, and treating all alike in succes- 



sion, abundant crops will always be forthcoming. 

 Doubtless these and other free-and-easy methods 

 tend to mar the perfect form of Gooseberry- bushes ; 

 but, after all, abundant produce is to be preferred to 

 symmetry of form, and the biennial pruning instead 

 of annual insures enormous crops. 



Nor can our remarks on training be complete with- 

 out reference to the use of the Gooseberry as a 

 hedge plant for the formation of boundary lines 

 around, and better still, dividing lines between, gar- 

 dens. No one familiar with cottage gardens and 

 allotments but must have regretted the loss of space 

 and produce entailed by the too often prodigal use 

 of White-thorn, Privet, Beech, Black-thorn, Maple, 

 and other fences. Any of these or other hedge 

 plants exhaust the soil as much and cumber it pro- 

 bably more than a hedge formed of Gooseberries. 

 For forming hedges, the plants may be put in closely, 

 a foot or so apart, and encouraged to grow into a 

 wide base, tapering to a point at top. It is not 

 needful even for defence, nor desirable for profit, 

 that the Gooseberries should be so dense in their 

 centres, nor so smooth on their sides, as hedges of 

 White-thorns. But Gooseberry hedges a yard wide 

 at the base, and varying in height from three feet 

 to five, will form sufficiently safe dividing-lines be- 

 tween gardens. If planted in good soil a yard wide 

 and deep, and the surface of the hedges left, say, six 

 inches lower than the surrounding surface, and all 

 house -slops, sewage, drainage of pig-stys, &c, ap- 

 plied to the Gooseberry - bushes during dry, hot 

 weather, the plants would be maintained in vigour, 

 and the crops developed into good size and high 

 quality. In the case of dividing-lines, there might 

 be a difficulty in fairly dividing the produce were 

 each to claim his own side, and hence the fairness 

 of measuring the hedges into two equal parts length- 

 ways, each occupier to have the same length of hedge. 

 A few stakes along the centre line suffice to start 

 Gooseberry hedges straight and true, and the chief 

 attention afterwards is to run the knife or shears 

 over them in July, and again in October or No- 

 vember. 



General Culture of the Gooseberry.— This 

 consists in the prompt removal of suckers or misplaced 

 shoots, in keeping the surface soil free of weeds, and 

 liberally mulched with manure, in pointing or fleetly 

 forking it up in the autumn, partially turning in the 

 mulch, and adding fresh ; in flooding the roots with 

 sewage or manure, or clean water, in dry weather ; 

 in thinning the fruit, and carefully preserving it 

 from the ravages of wasps and birds. The breast- 

 wood should also be fore-shortened early in July, 

 unless in hot, dry localities, when it is better left 

 full length until the fruit is gathered. From three 



