GOOSEBERRY, graiz'br-ri or gMs'-. The fruit of a prickly shrub of the genus Ribes, order Grossulariacete. The genus is qomnion throughout the north temperate zone, being represented by numerous species in America, Europe, and Asia, the great majority of which belong to North America. Of all these only four or five species have attained prominence in cul tivation. The currant (q.v.) (Ribes rubrum) is one of the most important representatives of the genus, and carries its distribution into the Orient. In the gooseberry. however, we find a very popu lar shrub in both the New and the Old World; it is especially prized in England, where it has at tained its highest perfection, and where it has been in cultivation from the sixteenth century.
Since it occurs only sparingly in Southern Eu rope, where the grape thrives so well, it is little wonder that the gooseberry was neglected by the Greeks and Romans, even if they were familiar with it. The European gooseberry (Ribes grossu laria) is in its natural state a strong-growing upright shrub with very formidable spines upon the branches and a hairy, more or less spiny, fruit. It is the progenitor of all the mammoth fruited varieties which have caused so much emulation among the gardeners of England, who have produced fruits weighing as much as 30 pennyweights; the unimproved fruits hardly average four pennyweights in weight. Varieties of this species were brought to America by the early pioneers, but the climate was uncongenial, and they suffered from disease and soon perished. Not until the middle of the nineteenth century could America claim to have a cultivated goose berry, and then only a seedling of one of the wild forms, Ribes oxyacanthoides, common throughout the country. This was Houghton's seedling, which, however, is not the most common wild species even at its place of origin, Massachusetts. It was soon followed by one of its own progeny, Downing's seedling or Downing. The popularity and universal cultivation of these two, which are still in the lead, is due largely to their ability to resist mildew. With the advent of spraying to check plant diseases a new era opened for European gooseberries in America; and since 1890 the English varieties have been planted with more assurance of success. There are now
numerous hybrids of the European with native species, which promise to combine the resistant characters of the latter with the desirable size, color, and form of the former.
The gooseberry is easily propagated by means of suckers, cuttings, and layers; cuttings are most frequently employed, as they grow readily and give a well-formed plant. The gooseberry thrives on all good arable soils and demands the same treatment as the currant. It is usually planted three by six feet apart in field culture, kept free from weeds, and sprayed with an arsenical poison early in the season to protect it from the worm which is as fond of it as it is of the currant. If the English varieties are grown the pOison must be supplemented with a fungicide. The fruits of the gooseberry are used extensively for jelly. jam. marmalade, etc., both in England and in America. The ripe fruits are also used to some extent in the manufacture of wines and vinegar.
Besides the two species above mentioned. the fol lowing species, being ornamental, should receive more attention than they do from horticulturists: The snow-flowered gooseberry (Ribes niveum), a native of the northwestern coast of America, is remarkable for its beautiful white pendulous flowers and its acid berries, which in size and color resemble black currants, and which make delicious pies. Ribes speciosunt is ornamental in pleasure grounds, and is remarkable for its shining leaves, as well as for its flowers having four stamens, instead of five, as in other species, and for the great length of the filaments. Ribes saxatile, a native of Siberia, and other species, forming a subgenus called Botrycarpum, have a character somewhat intermediate between cur rants and gooseberries, being prickly shrubs, but having their flowers in racemes. Ribes saxatile has small, smooth, globose, dark-purple berries, like currants. Consult Card, Bush Fruits (New York, 1898).