AUGUST. 
171 
large,but wanting outline and smoothness. Mrs. J. W. Todd (Downie & Co), had pure white 
lower petals, blotched and margined with rose, and rosy violet upper petals. Messrs. Dobson 
and Son exhibited the following :— No. 1 , deep rose self flowers, with a purple tinge round a 
white throat, and narrow edge of white, flowering freely, but spare in the habit; Homer, in 
the way of the foregoing, but having the lower petals broken into by lines of a pale colour; 
and Achievement and Silver Star, two light flowers of but little character. 
Quo. 
GREEN GOOSEBERRIES. 
During the lifetime of some of our market gardeners, the leafstalk of 
the Rhubarb, which is now grown by the acre and brought to market by the 
ton, was not a town vegetable; the “ million ” had to go without that cheap 
raw material for tarts, and people were considered to have been in the way 
of good luck and good living, who got Green Gooseberries for tarts. My 
object at present is not to cry down Rhubarb stalks as tart stuff, but to cry 
up the better article, so as to get, for making tarts, the green fruit instead 
of the green leafstalk. 
If any one in the possession of a plot of ground were asked if he could 
grow Gooseberries, he would certainly answer in the affirmative, and no 
doubt he would succeed without special tuition; but the culture for ripe 
Gooseberries differs in many points from the culture for tart Gooseberries. 
The Lancashire Gooseberry fancier will tell you to a fraction of the ounce 
the large size of his “Roaring Lion,” but this is just the reverse of what 
is considered best for tart Gooseberries. They should be small, their growth 
should be stunted, so that when other Gooseberries are full-sized, they 
should be half size, and never get to be full-sized. The goblet-shaped 
Gooseberry bush, hollowed out by pruning to give the fruit every opportunity 
of growing and ripening, has to be set aside, and the spiny shrub has to be 
treated like a Thorn hedge, the shoots long and straight, and thickly set, 
In short, it is a Gooseberry hedge that is wanted, and that a poor one, for 
if it is over-manured it will cease to be the crabbed style of thing that 
produces small fruit out of season. The green kinds are best, and the 
yellows come next, but the red kinds should be avoided, or used first before 
they show any of their ripening colour. 
Many years ago my father planted a hedge of Gooseberry bushes to 
prevent a neighbour from encroaching, and he put in a lot of spare bushes 
and a great many cuttings of full length, just as they were pruned from the 
Gooseberry bushes, and a matted thicket was the consequence, very prolific 
indeed of spines ; but a very unlooked-for result was obtained, for after all 
other Gooseberries had got large and sweet, these were small and sour, and 
made excellent tarts. Any quantity of Gooseberry cuttings can be got in 
winter, and, if they are carefully put in the ground they will all strike root, 
and make good plants in the course of a short time. If any one possessed 
of a stock of plants will keep the pruning knife away from them, and get 
them into hedgerow fashion, he will soon get a weight of small fruit off 
them, for the plant is a sure cropper, and its forte lies in the multitude of 
spines and small sour berries that it can produce. It seems quite at home 
at this kind of work, and can act unaided by high cultivation. 
The price of green Gooseberries is extravagantly high, yet it is quite 
astonishing to see the quantities sold, and the large size they are. A tart 
Gooseberry should not be larger than a Hazel nut, but these I allude to 
are as big as Walnuts, and need to be sliced like Cucumbers before going 
into the pie-dish. As the fruit is only grown to half its natural size for tarts, 
