358 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



and the residuum treated with alcohol. The age of port and 

 other dark wines may be determined by means of this ap- 

 paratus. 18 (7, November 15,1871, 724. 



INCREASING TIIE VIGOR OF GROW T TH IN PLANTS. 



A very important announcement has lately been made in 

 France as to the effect produced upon the luxuriance of vege- 

 tation by the disturbance of the natural position of the branch- 

 es. It has been known for some time that if two branches 

 of a fruit tree be selected of about the same size, N and the 

 same upward inclination to the horizontal plane, and one of 

 these be bent downward toward this plane, it appears to lose 

 its vigor, while the other gains in a like ratio. It is now an- 

 nounced as the discovery of an ignorant peasant on the Dan- 

 ube, named Hooibreuk, that this law holds good only up to 

 the horizontal position ; and that, if the branch is depressed 

 still further, and below the horizontal, it becomes character- 

 ized by much greater vigor than before, and, in fact, will put 

 out leaves and branches to an astonishing and unheard-of de- 

 gree. But this depends upon keeping the branches as near- 

 ly as possible in a straight line, the effect being measurably 

 lost with a considerable curvature. In this case, only the 



buds which occupy the 

 top of the arc are devel- 

 oped completely, at the 

 expense of the rest, which 

 remain in their original 

 condition, contributing 

 neither to the extension 

 of foliage nor of fruit. 

 (The successive positions 

 of the branch are illus- 

 trated in the accompany- 

 ing cut.) 



Duchesne-Toureace, in 



these 



communicating 

 "^^, : facts to Les Jfondes, at- 

 tempts to show the causes 

 which seem to determine 

 so great a flow of sap to 

 the branches inclined below the horizontal line, and thinks 



