1 CAYRASCO DE FIGUEROA.
Names, Reader, I repeat, are serious things: and much ingenuity has been exerted in inventing appropriate ones not only for man and beast, but for inanimate things. Godfathers and Godmothers, Navigators, Shipbuilders, Florists, Botanists, Chemists, Jockies, Feeders, Stage Coach-Proprietors, Quacks, Perfumers, Novelists and Dramatists have all displayed their taste in the selection of Names.
More whimsically consorted names will seldom be found than among the Lodges of the Manchester Unity of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows—You find there Apollo and St. Peter; the Rose of Sharon, and the Rose of Cheetham; Earl Fitz-william, Farmer's Glory, and Poor Man's Protection; Philanthropic and Lord Byron, Lord John Russell and Good Intent; Queen Caroline (Bergami's Queen not George the Seconds) and Queen Adelaide.
Reader be pleased to walk into the Garden with me. You see that bush,—what would you call the fruit which it bears?—The Gooseberry.—But its more particular name?—Its botanical name is ribes—or grossularia, which you will Mr. Author.—Still Reader we are in generals. For you and I, and our wives and children, and all plain eaters of gooseberry-pie and gooseberry-fool, the simple name gooseberry might suffice. Not so for the scientific in gooseberries, the gooseberryologists. They could distinguish whether it were the King or the Duke of York; the Yellow Seedling or the Prince of Orange; Lord Hood or Sir Sidney Smith; Atlas or Hercules; the Green Goose or the Green Bob or the Green Chisel; the Colossus or the Duke of Bedford; Apollo or Tickle Toby; the Royal Oak or the Royal Sovereign; the Hero or the Jolly Smoaker; the Game Keeper or the Sceptre; the Golden Gourd or the Golden Lion, or the Gold-finder; Worthington's Conqueror or Somach's Victory; Robinson's Stump or Davenport's Lady; Blakeley's Chisel or Read's Satisfaction; Bell's Farmer or the Creeping Ceres; the White Muslin, the White Rose, the White Bear, the White Noble or the White Smith; the Huntsman, the Gunner, the Thrasher, the Viper, the Independent, the Glory of Eccles, or the Glory of England; Smith's Grim-Mask, Blomerly's John Bull, Hamlet's Beauty of England, Goodier's Nelson's Victory, Parkinson's Scarlet Virgin, Milling's Crown Bob, Kitt's Bank of England, Yeat's Wild-Man of the Wood, Davenport's Jolly Hatter, or Leigh's Fiddler.—For all these are Gooseberries: and yet this is none of them; it is the Old Ironmonger.
Lancashire is the County in which the Gooseberry has been most cultivated; there is a Gooseberry book annually printed at Manchester; and the Manchester Newspapers recording the death of a person and saying that he bore a severe illness with Christian fortitude and resignation, add that he was much esteemed among the Class of Gooseberry Growers.—A harmless class they must needs be deemed, but even in growing Gooseberries emulation may be carried too far.
The Royal Sovereign which in 1794 was grown by George Cook of Ashton near Preston which weighed seventeen pennyweights, eighteen grains, was thought a Royal Gooseberry at that day. But the growth of Gooseberries keeps pace with the March of Intellect. In 1830 the largest Yellow Gooseberry on record was shown at Stockport, it weighed thirty-two pennyweights, thirteen grains, and was named the Teazer. The largest Red one was the Roaring Lion of thirty-one pennyweights, thirteen grains, shown at Nantwich; and the largest White, was the Ostrich shown at Ormskirk; falling far short of the others, and yet weighing twenty-four pennyweights, twenty grains. They have been grown as large as Pigeon's eggs. But the fruit is not improved by the forced culture which increases its size. The Gooseberry growers who show for the prizes which are annually offered, thin the fruit so as to leave but two or three berries on a branch; even then prizes are not gained by fair dealing: they contrive to support a small cup under each of these, so that the fruit shall for some weeks rest in water that covers about a fourth part, and this they call suckling the gooseberry.
Your Orchard, Sir! you are perhaps content with Codlins and Pippins, Non-pareils and Russets, with a few nameless varieties. But Mr. Forsyth will tell you of the Beauty of Kent, of the Belle Grisdeline, the Boomrey, the Hampshire Nonsuch, the Dalmahoy, the Golden Mundi, the Queening, the Oak Peg, the Nine Square, the Paradise Pippin, the Violet Apple, the Corpendu, the Trevoider, the Ramborn, the Spanish Onion, the Royal George, the Pigeonette, the Norfolk Paradise, the Long-laster, the Kentish Fill-baskets, the Maiden's Blush, the Lady's Finger, the Scarlet Admirable, the Hall-Door, the Green Dragon, the Fox's Whelp, the Fair Maid of Wishford, Coble-dick-longerkin—an apple in the north of Devon and Cornwall, which Mr. Polwhele supposes to have been introduced into the parish of Stratton by one Longerkin who was called Cobble-dick, because his name was Richard and he was a Cobler by trade. John Apple,
——whose withered rind, intrench'd
With many a furrow, aptly represents
Decrepid age.2
the King of the Pippins (of him hereafter in the Chapter of Kings) and the Seek-no-farther,—after which no farther will we seek.
2 PHILIPS.