Editing Gooseberry (section)

=== In history ===
{{over-quotation|section|date=March 2023}}
Gooseberry growing was popular in 19th-century Britain. The 1879 edition of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica|Encyclopedia Britannica]]'' described gooseberries thus:<ref name="Baynes">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1879 |title=Gooseberry |encyclopedia=The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature |publisher=C. Scribner's sons |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3c87AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA779 |editor-last=Baynes |editor-first=T. S. |volume=10 |page=779}}</ref> 
<blockquote>The gooseberry is indigenous to many parts of Europe and western [[Asia]], growing naturally in [[alpine climate|alpine]] thickets and [[Rock (geology)|rocky]] [[Forest|woods]] in the lower country, from [[France]] eastward, well into the Himalayas and peninsular India.
In [[Great Britain|Britain]], it is often found in [[copse]]s and [[hedgerow]]s and about old ruins, but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or to determine where the gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the [[Alps]] of [[Piedmont (Italy)|Piedmont]] and [[Savoy]], it is uncertain whether the [[ancient Rome|Romans]] were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of [[Pliny the Elder]]'s ''[[Pliny's Natural History|Natural History]]''; the hot summers of [[Italy]], in ancient times as at present, would be unfavourable to its cultivation. Although gooseberries are now abundant in [[Germany]] and [[France]], it does not appear to have been much grown there in the [[Middle Ages]], though the wild fruit was held in some esteem [[Pharmacology|medicinally]] for the cooling properties of its [[acid]] juice in [[fever]]s; while the old [[English language|English]] name, ''Fea-berry'', still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Gooseberry|volume=12|page=243}}</ref>

[[William Turner (ornithologist)|William Turner]] describes the gooseberry in his ''Herball'', written about the middle of the 16th century, and a few years later it is mentioned in one of Thomas Tusser's quaint rhymes as an ordinary object of garden culture. Improved varieties were probably first raised by the skilful gardeners of [[Holland]], whose name for the fruit, ''Kruisbezie'', may have been corrupted into the present English vernacular word. Towards the end of the 18th century the gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture, especially in [[Lancashire, England|Lancashire]], where the working [[cotton]]-spinners raised numerous varieties from [[seed]], their efforts having been chiefly directed to increasing the size of the fruit.<ref name="Baynes" />

Of the many hundred sorts enumerated in recent horticultural works, few perhaps equal in flavour some of the older denizens of the fruit-garden, such as the ''Old Rough Red'' and ''Hairy Amber''. The [[climate]] of the [[British Isles]] seems peculiarly adapted to bring the gooseberry to perfection, and it may be grown successfully even in the most northern parts of [[Scotland]]; indeed, the flavour of the fruit is said to improve with increasing latitude. In [[Norway]] even, the bush flourishes in gardens on the west coast nearly up to the [[Arctic]] Circle, and it is found wild as far north as 63°. The dry summers of the French and German plains are less suited to it, though it is grown in some hilly districts with tolerable success. The gooseberry in the south of England will grow well in cool situations and may sometimes be seen in gardens near [[London]] flourishing under the partial shade of [[Apple (fruit)|apple]] [[tree]]s, but in the north it needs full exposure to the sun to bring the fruit to perfection. It will succeed in almost any [[soil]] but prefers a rich loam or black alluvium, and, though naturally a plant of rather dry places, will do well in moist land, if drained.<ref name="Baynes" /></blockquote>

The gooseberry was more populous in North America before it was discovered that it carries [[blister rust]], deadly to certain pines, resulting in its removal from forest areas.<ref name=":0" />