j| 1*EW METHOD OF TRAINING FRUtT TREES. 



in the spring ; and that any portion of the alburnum affords 

 less extractive matter after the leaves have been formed than 

 previously. I have also shown, that the aqueous fluid which 

 ascends in the spring in the birch and sycamore becomes 

 specificially heavier as it ascends towards the buds ; which, 

 I think, affords sufficient evidence, that the alburnum of 

 trees becomes during winter a reservoir of the sap or blood 

 of the tree, as the bulb of the hyacinth, tulip, and the tu- 

 ber of the potato, certainly do of the sap or blood of these 

 Wall trees gc- plants. Now a wall-tree, from the advantageous position of 

 than standards. **' ^ eaves relative to the light, probably generates much 

 more sap, comparatively with the number of its buds, than 

 a standard tree of the same size; and when it attempts to 

 employ its reserved sap in the spring, the gardener is com- 

 pelled to destroy (and frequently does so too soon and too 

 abruptly) a very large portion of the small succulent shoots 

 emitted, and the apis too often prevents the growth of those 

 which remain. The sap in consequence stagnates, and ap- 

 pears often to choke the passages through the small 

 branches ; which in consequence become incurably un- 

 healthy, and stunted in their growth : and nature then finds 

 means of employing the accumulated sap, which if retained 

 would generate the morbid exudation, gum, in the produc- 

 Luxwriant tion of luxuriant shoots. These shoots our gardeners, from 

 shoots should L an g] ev to Forsyth, have directed to be shortened in sum- 

 ened. mer, or cut out in the succeeding spring; but I have found 



great advantages in leaving them wholly unshorteried; when 

 they have uniformly produced the finest possible bearing 

 wood for thesucceding year; and so far is this practice from 

 having a tendency to render naked the lower, or internal 

 parts of the tree, whence those branches spring, that the 

 .strongest shoots they afford invariably issue from the buds 

 near their bases. I have also found, that the laterals that 

 spring from these luxuriant shoots, if stopped at the first 

 leaf, often afford very strong blossoms and fine fruit in the 

 succeeding season. Whenever therefore space can be found 

 to train in a luxuriant shoot, I think it should rarely or ne- 

 ver be either cut out, or shortened : it should, however, ne- 

 ver be trained perpendicularly, where this can be avoided. 



II, 



