BOTANY 



NEW FACTS IN ARBORICULTURE. 



Two branches of a tree may not unfrequently be observed to produce a 

 perfect bifurcation ; that is, they separate from a common point. Further 

 examination will show that such branches take their departure from one and 

 the same bud. In rarer instances, five or six branches may be observed to 

 all start from a common centre, and with a regularity that surprises, when 

 contrasted with the arrangement of the rest of the tree. These effects are 

 now and then produced by germing, or inoculating, and not seldom by the 

 unassisted handiwork of nature. When the latter is the case, the bifurca- 

 tion is caused by the bite of a caterpillar, or some other voracious insect, 

 which has but to gnaw the point of a bud to make it grow double, 

 triple, quadruple, and so on to transform itself indeed into numerous 

 buds, thereafter distinct and separate, each passing singly through all the 

 phases of its vegetation. 



What is here said applies to buds that produce wood ; it is equally true 

 of those that produce fruit. The insect plies its mandibles, and quite un- 

 consciously starts a new order of developments. After all, however, a little 

 reflection would lead us to believe that buds might be as fecund as seeds. 

 If one grain of wheat produces many grains, why not one bud many buds, 

 if we can only get it into the right condition ? What this condition is, we 

 learn from the insect. 



At all events, it has been learned by M. Millot-Bmle of France, and 

 turned to good account, for he produces effects at pleasure, without waiting 

 for the accident of an insect ; with the point of a penknife, or a slip of sand- 

 paper, he makes buds produce as many branches as he chooses. The 

 notion occurred to him in 1849 ; and he at once made experiments which 

 were successful : and repeating these year by year, he has now produced a 

 new and singularly interesting process of arboriculture. A commission ap- 

 pointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Public Works to examine into it, 

 reported in the following terms of what they had seen in M. Millot-Brule''s 

 gardens : " Several peach-stems present a multiude of branches proceeding 

 from the same centre with mathematical regularity and symmetry. By 

 skilful disbudding by incisions, and nipping of the buds or shoots, he 

 arranges the trees in a way at once the most picturesque and fantastic. 

 Under his fingers, the obedient branches assume the most varied and elegant 



