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266 FBIJITS IN THEIR SEASON!.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Viii. Oi/D Goosebeery A^D His Cuirakt Ee...
climate should not be brought to all the perfection of whichr it Is capable ; and the Danish Government at least are so sensible of its
merits , that gooseberry bushes are supplied to gardeners from the national nurseries in Denmark at a cost of little more -than a
halfpenny per plant , in order to encourage its culture . In our own country it must have coine under cultivation as early as the sixteenth
century , for Tusser , in 155 . 7 , writes : - — " The Look barbeny nom , resp planted is , and as gooseb other erry tilings too do , ;"
but does not appear to have been held in very high esteem , : for Gerardin 159 7 after mentioning that . the tencler leaves , are good
, , for salad—information of some Value to those who could not , like , Queen Catherinesend to Holland when they needed herbs for that
, purpose compounds — -and yet coniniending adds thai" the if eaten berries 1 ' by as themselves useful in , various they engender culinary
, , raw and cold blood . " Parkinson , however , by 1624 , had learnt to know better than this , and of the five kinds , " -three red , a blue ,
and a green / ' which were all that were known in his time , ; says that " all of them have a pleasant winie tasteacceptable to the stomach
of anieand none have been distempered , by the eating of them , that ever I could laear of . _" Still , they were considered inferior to
almost any other fruit , and perhaps justly so , for they had made but little progress in the hands of the gardeners ; nor were our
gooseberries equal to some continental ones , for a writer in 1750 says , " they are nowhere so good as in Holland ; " when , about the end
of last or the beginning of this century , the plant was adopted as the special favorite of a class of men who devoted to its culture all
the enthusiasm for which their ordinary occupation afforded no scope , and under the amateur care of Lancashire weavers the despised
berry , which had been left to rustics and children , was fitted to take its place at the most aristocratic tables , and earned the character it now bearsas being " one of our most valuable table and culinary
, fruits . " Its intrinsic excellence is doubtless enhanced by the fact of its being the first to greet us in spring , as well as one of the last to
leave us in autumn . ; for the green gooseberry is in season from , the beginning of May till the middle of Julywhen the ripe one succeeds
, it , and lasts till the end of August , and some kinds will even , when kept shaded , prolong the supply till November , or , in a dry season ,
till Christmas . Of the various hues assumed by this grape of the Norththe amber color isaccording to Hhindaccompanied by the
richest , vinous flavoras is , the case with the more , legitimate , or at least older offspring , of Bacchus ; the green is specially noted for
sweetness , as is also the greengage among plums ; the white are most insiidand in the redacidity is more predominant than in
p , , any of the others— -a fact in accordance with the property possessed by acids of changing vegetable blues to red . Though only
£ i bush by nature , the gooseberry sometimes attains almost arboreal
266 Fbijits In Their Season!.
266 _FBIJITS IN THEIR SEASON ! .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1861, page 266, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061861/page/50/
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