S62 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[Feb. 



rows, and most generally close to the stem of the bushes. 

 When these fruits are planted in quarters, they should be re- 

 newed every seven or ten years ; . in that case, finer fruit would 

 be produced, and the plants could be kept within such bounds 

 as to admit of the ground between the rows being cropped 

 with culinary vegetables. The Lancashire connoisseurs grow 

 their finer gooseberries in very highly manured soils, and give 

 copious supplies of water, and often apply liquid manure. By 

 this method, and by shading and thinning the fi'uit, they ob- 

 tain it of such a size, that it is not surpassed in any part of the 

 world. They not only water at the root, but often place small 

 saucers with water under each fruit ; this is what they call 

 suckling their gooseberries. When fi-uit of the largest size is 

 required, they often do not allow more than three or four 

 berries to remain on a tree ; they also cut off the greater part 

 of the young wood, so as to throw all the nourishment pos- 

 sible into the fruit. 



By digging the ground at this season, or during any of the 

 winter months, such insects as may be deposited in their larvae 

 state in the ground wall be destroyed, or buried so deeply that 

 the heat of the sun will not be sufficiently powerful to re-ani- 

 mate them, at least at an. early period of summer, while the 

 leaves and shoots are in a tender state. With a view to this 

 effect, Tweedie, an experienced gardener, pares all the earth 

 from under the bushes to the depth of about three inches into 

 a flat ridge between the rows ; on the first dry day following, 

 he either treads, beats, or rolls these ridges, and trenches the 

 whole down one and a half or two spades deep, observing to 

 tread the foul earth into the bottom of the trench. 



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