A correspondent from Taunton, Bristol Co., Mass., writes: " I take the liberty to send you, by today's mail, some sample gooseberries, for your opinion. From the original bush, which was on my place when purchased, forty years ago, I picked in July, 1884, twenty-three quarts of green berries. This year, the dry spell came just at the growing time; still, two weeks ago, from the old bush and three smaller ones, I gathered forty quarts. The bush has never failed to produce an abundant crop of berries; nor has it ever showed the least sign of mildew. In fact, I should never have known that gooseberries were afflicted with that blight, had I not read of it in horticultural works.

" The berries I send, have had no special culture. Such work is out of my line; still I am confident, had there been any, that the fruit would have been very much larger. You will see they are not quite ripe nor full grown now; still you can judge something about them. Is it a fruit worth anything? Is it more than ordinary?"

[This is one of the race of English gooseberries; much larger than are usually seen in this country, but not larger, or as large, as the same variety would probably be grown in the old world. The varieties there are so numerous, that it is impossible to say whether or not this is a seedling different from one of them. It is most likely one that has long been named and introduced from the old world.

It may be well here to remark, that an idea prevails, that the English gooseberry always mildews in America; and so, when one gets a plant that has not yet had mildew, the owner believes it is either of the American race of gooseberries, or that he is the lucky possessor of an English variety that will not mildew, that it must of necessity be a new kind. The tact is, the English gooseberry only mildews in America when it is grown in situations exposed to a long hot summer's sun. Wherever the soil is cool, or the sun kept from the plants by buildings or fences, the English gooseberry does very well. In Canada the northeastern parts of the United States, or anywhere south in shady places at high elevations, it succeeds. In the coal regions of Pennsylvania, where the miners are English, they introduce and grow the favorite fruit of their old homes, and cultivate them with great success. Here in Germantown, a locality once settled by Germans, but now chiefly in the hands of the English and Scotch, or their immediate descendants, the favorite English gooseberry is very suc-cesful in the small shaded yards of the artisans; but it mildews when in the larger gardens of the wealthy, where the extent permits an all-day sun to heat the ground.

There is no reason why the English gooseberry should not be grown in every garden. It is the art of the gardener to- suit his plant to the requirements of nature. He does not plant potatoes just before frost, or set out egg-plants or tomatoes at times when he would plant cabbages or sow turnips, and when they get frozen declare that "they cannot be grown here." Yet he takes a gooseberry that requires a damp atmosphere, a shady place, cool soil, and plenty of decaying vegetable manure, and places it in the full sun, where only a sweet potato would grow without grumbling, and because it mildews now and then, it is pronounced unfit for American fruit gardens.

We publish our correspondent's letter, because it shows how easily it can be grown, when the right place is found for it. The dissemination of the Industry, Triumph, and others of the English race, recently, is doing much to make the merits of this delicious fruit known; and we expect to see, by proper attention to the requirements of good culture, the English gooseberry successfully grown in every amateur garden that has any pretension to excellence. - Ed. G. M].