[1] The meaning and derivation of this word _lag_ had long been a
puzzle until Skeat suggested (_Ibis_, 1870, p. 301) that it signified
late, last, or slow, as in _laggard_, a loiterer, _lagman_, the last
man, _lagteeth_, the posterior molar or "wisdom" teeth (as the last
to appear), and _lagclock_, a clock that is behind time. Thus the
grey lag goose is the grey goose which in England when the name was
given was not migratory but _lagged_ behind the other wild species at
the season when they betook themselves to their northern
breeding-quarters. In connexion with this word, however, must be
noticed the curious fact mentioned by Rowley (_Orn. Miscell._, iii.
213), that the flocks of tame geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by
their drivers with the cry of "lag'em, lag'em."
[2] From the times of the Romans white geese have been held in great
estimation, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as
breeding stock, but the practice of plucking geese alive, continued
for so many centuries, has not improbably also helped to perpetuate
this variation, for it is well known to many bird-keepers that a
white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural colour
that has been pulled out.
[3] In some English counties, especially Norfolk and Lincoln, it was
no uncommon thing formerly for a man to keep a stock of a thousand
geese, each of which might be reckoned to rear on an average seven
goslings. The flocks were regularly taken to pasture and water, just
as sheep are, and the man who tended them was called the gooseherd,
corrupted into gozzerd. The birds were plucked five times in the
year, and in autumn the flocks were driven to London or other large
markets. They travelled at the rate of about a mile an hour, and
would get over nearly 10 m. in the day. For further particulars the
reader may be referred to Pennant's _British Zoology_; Montagu's
_Ornithological Dictionary_; Latham's _General History of Birds_; and
Rowley's _Ornithological Miscellany_ (iii. 206-215), where some
account also may be found of the goose-fatting at Strassburg.
[4] See Sclater and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Society (1876), pp. 361-369.
[5] The etymology of these two words is exceedingly obscure. The
ordinary spelling bernicle seems to be wrong, if we may judge from
the analogy of the French _Bernache_. In both words the _e_ should be
sounded as _a_.
[6] The old fable, perhaps still believed by the uneducated in some
parts of the world, was that bernacle-geese were produced from the
barnacles (_Lepadidae_) that grow on timber exposed to salt-water.
GOOSE (GAME OF), an ancient French game, said to have been derived from
the Greeks, very popular at the close of the middle ages. It was played
on a piece of card-board upon which was drawn a fantastic scroll, called
the _jardin de l'Oie_ (goose-garden), divided into 63 spaces marked with
certain emblems, such as dice, an inn, a bridge, a labyrinth, &c. The
emblem inscribed on 1 and 63, as well as every ninth space between, was
a goose. The object was to land one's counter in number 63, the number
of spaces moved through being determined by throwing two dice. The
counter was advanced or retired according to the space on which it was
placed. For instance if it rested on the inn it must remain there until
each adversary, of which there might be several, had played twice; if it
rested on the _death's head_ the player must begin over again; if it
went beyond 63 it must be retired a certain number of spaces. The game
was usually played for a stake, and special fines were exacted for
resting on certain spaces. At the end of the 18th century a variation of
the game was called the _jeu de la Revolution Francaise_.
GOOSEBERRY, _Ribes Grossularia_, a well-known fruit-bush of northern and
central Europe, placed in the same genus of the natural order to which
it gives name (Ribesiaceae) as the closely allied currants. It forms a
distinct section _Grossularia_, the members of which differ from the
true currents chiefly in their spinous stems, and in their flowers
growing on short footstalks, solitary, or two or three together, instead
of in racemes.
The wild gooseberry is a small, straggling bush, nearly resembling the
cultivated plant,--the branches being thickly set with sharp spines,
standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases
of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots, on which the bell-shaped
flowers are produced, singly or in pairs, from the groups of rounded,
deeply-crenated 3- or 5-lobed leaves. The fruit is smaller than in the
garden kinds, but is often of good flavour; it is generally hairy, but
in one variety smooth, constituting the _R. Uva-crispa_ of writers; the
colour is usually green, but plants are occasionally met with having
deep purple berries. The gooseberry is indigenous in Europe and western
Asia, growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower
country, from France eastward, perhaps as far as the Himalaya. In
Britain it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins,
but has been so long a plant of cultivation that it is difficult to
decide upon its claim to a place in the native flora of the island.
Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont
and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the
gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of
Pliny: the hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would
be unfavourable to its cultivation. 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 medicinally for the cooling
properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the old 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. 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 easily corrupted into the present
English vernacular word.[1] Towards the end of the 18th century the
gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture, especially
in Lancashire, where the working cotton-spinners have raised numerous
varieties from seed, their efforts having been chiefly directed to
increasing the size of the fruit. 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 Islands 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 deg. 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 be sometimes seen in gardens near London flourishing under the
partial shade of apple trees; 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.
The varieties are most easily propagated by cuttings planted in the
autumn, which root rapidly, and in a few years form good fruit-bearing
bushes. Much difference of opinion prevails regarding the mode of
pruning this valuable shrub; it is probable that in different situations
it may require varying treatment. The fruit being borne on the lateral
spurs, and on the shoots of the last year, it is the usual practice to
shorten the side branches in the winter, before the buds begin to
expand; some reduce the longer leading shoots at the same time, while
others prefer to nip off the ends of these in the summer while they are
still succulent. When large fruit is desired, plenty of manure should
be supplied to the roots, and the greater portion of the berries picked
off while still small. If standards are desired, the gooseberry may be
with advantage grafted or budded on stocks of some other species of
_Ribes_, _R. aureum_, the ornamental golden currant of the flower
garden, answering well for the purpose. The giant gooseberries of the
Lancashire "fanciers" are obtained by the careful culture of varieties
specially raised with this object, the growth being encouraged by
abundant manuring, and the removal of all but a very few berries from
each plant. Single gooseberries of nearly 2 oz. in weight have been
occasionally exhibited; but the produce of such fanciful horticulture is
generally insipid. The bushes at times suffer much from the ravages of
the caterpillars of the gooseberry or magpie moth, _Abraxas
grossulariata_, which often strip the branches of leaves in the early
summer, if not destroyed before the mischief is accomplished. The most
effectual way of getting rid of this pretty but destructive insect is to
look over each bush carefully, and pick off the larvae by hand; when
larger they may be shaken off by striking the branches, but by that time
the harm is generally done--the eggs are laid on the leaves of the
previous season. Equally annoying in some years is the smaller larva of
the V-moth, _Halias vanaria_, which often appears in great numbers, and
is not so readily removed. The gooseberry is sometimes attacked by the
grub of the gooseberry sawfly, _Nematus ribesii_, of which several
broods appear in the course of the spring and summer, and are very
destructive. The grubs bury themselves in the ground to pass into the
pupal state; the first brood of flies, hatched just as the bushes are
coming into leaf in the spring, lay their eggs on the lower side of the
leaves, where the small greenish larvae soon after emerge. For the
destruction of the first broods it has been recommended to syringe the
bushes with tar-water; perhaps a very weak solution of carbolic acid
might prove more effective. The powdered root of white hellebore is said
to destroy both this grub and the caterpillars of the gooseberry moth
and V-moth; infusion of foxglove, and tobacco-water, are likewise tried
by some growers. If the fallen leaves are carefully removed from the
ground in the autumn and burnt, and the surface of the soil turned over
with the fork or spade, most eggs and chrysalids will be destroyed.
The gooseberry was introduced into the United States by the early
settlers, and in some parts of New England large quantities of the green
fruit are produced and sold for culinary use in the towns; but the
excessive heat of the American summer is not adapted for the healthy
maturation of the berries, especially of the English varieties. Perhaps
if some of these, or those raised in the country, could be crossed with
one of the indigenous species, kinds might be obtained better fitted for
American conditions of culture, although the gooseberry does not readily
hybridize. The attacks of the American gooseberry mildew have largely
contributed to the failure of the crop in America.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A Fungal Disease of the Gooseberry (_Aecidium
Grossulariae_.)
1, Leaf showing patches of cluster-cups on surface; 2, Fruit, showing
same; 3, Cluster-cups much enlarged.]
Occasionally the gooseberry is attacked by the fungus till recently
called _Aecidium Grossulariae_, which forms little cups with white torn
edges clustered together on reddish spots on the leaves or fruits (fig.
1). It has recently been discovered that the spores contained in these
cups will not reproduce the disease on the gooseberry, but infect
species of _Carex_ (sedges) on which they produce a fungus of a totally
different appearance. This stage in the life-history of the parasite
gives its name to the whole fungus, so that it is now known as _Puccinia
Pringsheimiana_. Both _uredospores_ and _teleutospores_ are formed on
the sedge, and the latter live through the winter and produce the
disease on the gooseberry in the succeeding year. In cases where the
disease proves troublesome the sedges in the neighbourhood should be
destroyed.
[Illustration: From George Massee's _Text-Book of Plant Diseases_, by
permission of Duckworth & Co.