Gooseberry Shows are held annually in Lancashire, and excite keen competition; but after exhibition, the successful berries are "topped and tailed," so as to disqualify them from being shown elsewhere. Southey, in _The Doctor_, speaks about an obituary notice in a former Manchester newspaper, of a man who "bore a severe illness with Christian fortitude, and was much esteemed among Gooseberry growers." Prizes are given for the [226] biggest and heaviest berries, which are produced with immense pains as to manuring, and the growth of cool chickweed around the roots of the bushes. At the same time each promising berry is kept submerged in a shallow vessel of water placed beneath it so as to compel absorption of moisture, and thus to enlarge its size. Whimsical names, such as "Golden Lion," "The Jolly Angler," and "Crown Bob," etc., are bestowed on the prize fruit. Cuttings from the parent plant of a prize Gooseberry become in great request; and thus the pedigree scions of a single bush have been known to yield as much as thirty-two pounds sterling to their possessor. The _Gooseberry Book_ is a regular Manchester annual. A berry weighing as heavy as thirty-seven penny-weight has been exhibited; and a story is told of a Middleton weaver, who, when a thunder-storm was gathering, lay awake as if for his life, and at the first patter of rain against the window panes, rushed to the rescue of his Gooseberry bushes with his bed quilt. Green Gooseberries will help to abate the strange longings which sometimes beset pregnant women. In Devon the rustics call Gooseberries "Deberries," and in Sussex they are familiarly known to village lads as Goosegogs. An Irish cure for warts is to prick them with a Gooseberry thorn passed through a wedding ring. By some subtle bodily action wrought through a suggestion made to the mind, warts undoubtedly disappear as the result of this and many another equally trivial proceeding; which being so, why not the more serious skin affections, and larger morbid growths? The poet Southey wrote a _Pindaric Ode upon a Gooseberry_ [227] Pie, beginning "Gooseberry Pie is best," with the refrain:-- "And didst thou scratch thy tender arms, Oh, Jane I that I should dine"? GOOSEFOOT. Among Curative Simples, the Goosefoot, or Chenopod order of British plants, contributes two useful herbs, the _Chenopodium bonus Henricus_ (Good King Henry), and the _Chenopodium vulvaria_ (Stinking Goosefoot). This tribe derives its distinctive title from the Greek words, _cheen_, a goose, and _pous_, a foot, in allusion to the resemblance borne by its leaves to the webbed members of that waddling bird which raw recruits are wont to bless for their irksome drill of the goose-step. Incidentally, it may be said that goosegrease, got from the roasted bird, is highly emollient, and very useful in clysters; it also proves easily emetic.