THE GOOSEBERRY. 



563 



situation and subsoil, or by the surface being covered by the branches of the 

 bushes, so as greatly to lessen evaporation. The situation should be open, 

 and by no means shaded witli standard fruit trees, the gooseberries grown 

 under which are almost always bitter. In general gooseberries and all fruit 

 shrubs should be cultivated m plantations by themselves (904) ; but in small 

 gardens they may be placed in rows along the borders, either as dwarfs or 

 espaliers : plants one, or at most two years' from the cutting, are most 

 suitable, and the distances in both cases have been already given (904 

 and 906). 



1220. — Mode of bearing^ pruning^ and training. — The fruit is produced on 

 the shoots of the preceding year, and on spurs from shoots of three or more 

 years' growth. The largest fruit is always produced on the wood of the 

 preceding year, and as the spurs grow old, and increase in size, the fruit 

 becomes smaller, though it increases in quantity ; which, indeed, is the 

 case with all fruit grown on spurs. The gooseberry requires to be pruned 

 in early summer, because in general it produces more shoots than can be 

 allowed to remain, without depriving the fruit-bearing branches of a due 

 share of light and air. All superfluous shoots, therefore, should be stopped 

 with the finger and thumb when they are between one inch and two inches 

 in length, and again stopped at the second joint, when they have made a 

 second growth. A common fault in gardens is to allow the shoots of goose- 

 berries and currants to grow nearly their full length before they are thinned 

 out, in consequence of which the fruit is deprived of its due share of 

 nourishment, light, and air, and more strength is communicated to the 

 root than is required for the due adjustment of the root and top. Hence, 

 in almost all gardens, we find the gooseberry and currant bushes far too 

 luxuriant. All the training the gooseberry, treated as a bush, requires, is 

 to stop or prune it in such a manner as to keep the bush rather open in the 

 centre, and the branches all radiating outwards from the stem, or from the 

 main branches ; crossing one another as little as possible, and when they do 

 cross, never touching. On espaliers they should be trained in the perpen- 

 dicular manner (808 and 906), or at an angle of 45°, or half that angle; and if 

 only two upright shoots are trained from every plant, the trellis or espalier 

 rail w^ill be the sooner covered. Where plants are in abundance, which they 

 may in many cases be by raising them from cuttings at home, only one upright 

 shoot may be trained from each cutting, and these being planted at one 

 foot apart, the trellis or rail, if not more than five feet high, will be com- 

 pletely covered in three years. If the champagne or ironmonger is planted, 

 and the plants, when cuttings, allowed to make only one vertical shoot 

 from the terminal bud, then after they have made two years' growth 

 against the espalier rail, they will have reached its summit, and may 



V be spurred in afterwards from within a foot of the ground to the top of 

 the rail. If a double espalier rail, such as we figured in the Suburban Land- 

 scape Gardener, fig. 69, p. 232, is used, a very handsome gooseberry hedge 

 will thus be formed, which will bear abundance of fruit of the best flavour, 

 because freely exposed to the light and air, for twelve or fifteen years. 



1221. The growers of gooseberries for prizes necessarily take much more 

 pains in pruning and training than the gardeners of private gentlemen. The 

 plants are raised from cuttings in the usual manner, and in the autumn of 

 the first year they are transplanted to the soil and situation where they are 

 to produce their fruit. This is, if possible, a deep warm, rich, marly loam, 



