22 
berries (XXIX, d) in our gardens obtained their name of 
Currants. — They are much like little grapes, but the 
small calyx grows above instead of below the germ, and 
does not fall off or become obliterated as in the grape. 
White and red currants are most beautiful transparent 
fruits, but excessively acid, the black currant has a very 
peculiar scent in the leaves when crushed, and is parti¬ 
cularly good and useful for puddings and preserves. Many 
a child will remember the fine dark currant juice that has 
made his mouth as black as the palate of a black spaniel. 
GOOSEBERRIES (c) are brothers to currants, though so much 
larger, and the fruit covered with bristles, and the bran¬ 
ches with spines, that make gathering Gooseberries for 
a pie rather dangerous work to the fingers. 
Their leaves are smaller and more polished, and so hardy that 
they are among the first green we see in the spring. — 
Green gooseberries are excellent for puddings and pies 
and the ripe fruit is the sweetest that is often grown in 
English gardens. 
They are both wild native plants reclaimed by cultivation, and 
some of the American kinds have such beautiful coloured 
calices, in crimson or pink, as to be often grown for orna¬ 
ment in gardens. 
The BARBERRY (d), is a very curious shrub, with exceedingly 
tough hard yellow wood, branches covered with long 
sharp thorns, shining green leaves, and clusters of very 
pretty little yellow flowers of six petals, and six stamens. 
These stamens are so wonderfully constructed that at the 
least touch given to the filament, they leap up with a 
sudden pop, bend down the Anther, touch the pistil with 
it, and then go back to their proper place. The fruit is 
of a beautiful scarlet colour, and a curious oblong shape, 
not unwholesome but so acid that it can hardly be eaten 
except as a preserve. Farmers fancy that wheat will not 
grow near a Barberry tree, but it does not seem certain 
how far this is true. Another family with woody stems, 
evergreen leaves, low growth and small white flowers 
holding to the rule of four, are the fruit bearers of the 
Heath and Moorland Waste. Low, tough and hardy, they 
only want to have their roots in the bog, they open their 
flowers in the short Northern summer, and ripen their 
berries even under the snow. 
The CRANBERRY ( e ), is one of these brave berry bearing 
plants, the dwellers on the mountain and the marsh, and 
beloved by many a child of the moor and moss. It grows 
in Russia, Sweden and Scotland, and used to grow all 
over England, but the draining of bogs and marshes has 
very much driven it away, and Cranberry tarts are chiefly 
made of berries imported from America or Russia. 
The WHORTLE BERRY, BEARBERRY, MOSSBERRY, and 
MOLTEBERRY are all of the same family, and shew 
how scarcely any place fit for man’s habitation has been 
left without pleasant fruits for his pleasure and his good. 
Lastly we have the MULBERRY, a large tree of rugged bark, 
and pale green shining leaves. The stamens grow in 
small separate spikes of flowers, four and four together, 
the styles in the midst of the clusters of fleshy calices which 
are in fact the young fruit, and growing together become 
dark red or black, and excedingly juicy. These trees live to 
a great age, though there used to be an old notion that 
they would not bear fruit till three cats had been buried 
under them! They were very favorite trees in old gardens, 
and many of those now alive are at least 300 years old. 
Cardinal Pole is said to have planted the first grown in 
England at Lambeth Palace in 1555, and Kang James 1 st 
offered packets of Mulberry seeds to whosever would sow 
them. — The children of these seeds are many of them 
still growing, but their value was not for the fruit but for 
the leaves, as silkworm’s food. King James hoped to 
have silk made in England, but time shewed that it was 
better and cheaper to let the silkworms and their Mul¬ 
berries live in the more suitable climate of Lombardy, 
where large houses are filled with shelves upon shelves 
containing trays of the gormandizing caterpillars, which 
are kept constantly supplied from the trees by the Italian 
peasants all the summer, when they spin their golden 
coccoons, and thus as the pretty proverb says “With 
patience the Mulberry leaf becomes Satin” — Perhaps 
it may help the memory of some of the young learners of 
Geography to hear that the Morea, the Peninsula of 
Greece, is so called because the Venetians likened the 
shape to a Mulberry leaf, which they called moro. 
