ORCHARD NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2420, 14 January 1888, Page 3

ORCHARD NOTES.

Some remarkably fine gooseberries are being grown by Mr Geo. Henson, ot Cambridge, and our reporter felt no surprise when he was told by the grower that they commanded the highest price in the Auckland market. An improved Farmer's Glory is a mammoth berry with a very tine skin, and a fine flavour ; in size the fruit is more like a good sized plum, and for a table gooseberry can hardly be excelled. The White Champagne berry is also a fine fruit, very sweet in taste, and handsome in appenranee. A new variety, the Zell, is a most prolific bearer of large fine fruit, and as the berries do not ripen till the end of this month is specially valuable. This variety makes very little wood, going all to fruit, and the bushes seen were literally loaded to the ground. The White Champagne bushes were also well fruited, although they had been gathered once, and we may here say that Mr Henson does not believe in any of the patent pickers, preferring his own hand protected by a thick leather glove, then he can pick five hundred weight in a day. Mr Hen son's nursery is well-known for the admirable order in which it is kept, the ground being beautifully clean. He believes in the old adage "One year's seeding, seven year s weeding," and so never gives the weeds a chance. This year he will have a tine lot of fruit, Doyenne d'Hte pears are nearly ripe, and he has already gathered peaches, the Early liivers, Some fine trees this variety, are loaded with their delicious fruit, and Mr Henson thinks highly of the sort, as it doesnot blight, which he has conclusively proved by planting other blighting sorts alongside them without their .suffering in the least. Of grapes, also, he has a \ery good show, and a vi-it to t: e nur-et v will well repay anyone interested in horticul ture.