MISSOURI VALLEY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY KEPORT. 135 



time a plant may have an abundance of one, and at a future time of 

 another of these substances. So that although these substances are 

 nearl}^ alike in chemical composition, and are in all plants, yet one will 

 lay up stores of sugar, starch or plant fabric as the case may be/ We 

 «ee this especially in Indian corn and the potato. This principal makes 

 •each variety of plant valuable in its own place and is the medicinal 

 properties of plants, the oils secreted, the coffee its valuable properties* 

 ■castor oil bean, tea, Peruvian bark, &c. 



Now, then, this power of changing can only be done in the young 

 «tate, and we can have a lesson from this on our fruit trees. 



In the first place, then, all flowers are simply changed leaves, and 

 if these can be changed by any means in our power, then we have it in 

 our hands to get fruit buds. Now, few fruit growers and nurserymen 

 but what know that if we cut a ring out of the bark of the tree in time 

 in the spring the growth of buds will change into fruit buds, but that 

 if it is done too late it will do no good. This power to change is visible 

 in all plants as soon as the life of the tree or plant is threatened then 

 it changes its growth into fruit and seeds. But the opposite is also 

 true. Let a plant be injured after the forming of the buds or during 

 winter and they may be so injured that the buds will just open but 

 never set a bit of fruit; or if may be so injured that not one of the 

 buds will bloom, or they may be injured so they will not even form 

 wood growth. 



All fruits, therefore, that form their fruit buds the previous year 

 and lie dormant can easily be told when injured or can be easily seen 

 as they form their buds, and can be made to change the growth buds 

 into fruit buds if taken in time. But all fruits and nuts which form 

 their fruit on the growth of the year can not be so easily seen in its 

 effects and they seem to be under different laws. 



For instance, the grape has two sets of buds, but late in the season 

 no one supposes that it could change its growth into fruit bearing. 

 Nor the peach. If the buds for fruit are killed the tree has no power 

 to transform its growth buds into fruit buds, and yet the tree has this 

 power at the time of its early growth in the season. But in the walnut 

 chestnut and hickory the bloom buds are formed on the present year's 

 growth and the change can not be so easily seen- In the raspberry 

 blackberry and grape we find this same principle of growth, the young 

 shoots from the last years stem bringing the fruit. Now, if the cane is 

 injured by the winter, or the buds are killed, then the growth, although 

 it may set fruit (if not injured too badly), will never ripen them, and 

 ■oftentimes it will not even bloom, although it may make a good growth. 

 In fact it is simply this, the fruit buds being a modified leaf, if ir)jured, 

 will return to its primitive form — leaf growth. 



