SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 41 



duce the fruit ; that is, the buds which will produce fruit next sea- 

 son have formed this summer, and we have in the fall wrapped up 

 in the little bud the fruit already formed, even to the seeds, which can 

 then be seen as distinctly with the microscope as it can be with the 

 naked eye after it is grown and ripened the next season. If, there- 

 fore, the tree is carrying a heavy load of fruit, it has all it can do to 

 develop that fruit, and cannot produce fruit buds at the same time, in 

 consequence oT which the tree cannot bear fruit the next season; if, 

 instead of developing a heavy load of fruit, it had only been made to 

 carry a small or medium crop, the tree would have been able to form 

 fruit buds at the same time it was developing its fruit. There are cer- 

 tain varieties of apples that produce medium crops almost every year, 

 but such seldom bear large crops any one year. 



The bearing year of a tree can be changed by picking off the 

 blossoms, or by destroying the fruit before it has drawn to any con- 

 siderable extent upon the tree. I say that the bearing year can be 

 changed by removing the blossoms, but I do not say that picking off 

 the blossoms one single year will permanently change a tree, as there 

 will probably be a tendency to bear more or less fruit every year, which 

 may end in the tree working back to its regular year ; but if the blos- 

 soms are kept picked off until the habit is fixed, there is no reason why 

 a tree cannot be changed in its bearing year. In my own case, remov- 

 ing the blossoms two or three times has permanently fixed this habit, 

 while other trees of the same varieties standing next to them whose 

 blossoms were not removed have continued to bear their regular years; 

 and I know where the apple orchards of whole districts have had their 

 bearing year changed by a severe frost when they were in full bloom. 



Another point respecting the growth of a tree where there seems 

 to be a mistake in many cases, is the manner in which it increases in 

 height. Do the truuk and branches of a tree increase in length the 

 same as an animal grows, by the elongation of its central parts ? If 

 so, this would cause the point where the trunk divides and forms 

 branches, or a mark made anywhere on the trunk, to increase in height 

 from the ground as the tree grows. Such a growth can and does take 

 place in an animal, for it is alive throughout all of its parts : but, as has 

 already been stated in this paper, the only life in the trunk of a tree is 

 confined to the thin layer between the wood and bark, and that all be- 

 neath is dead, makes it impossible for such a growth to occur, and the 

 only way a tree can increase in height is by the additions of new growth 

 to the extreme ends of its branches through the actions of its buds ; 

 and after this growth has once ripened it never increases in length, 

 except by additions to its ends, and a mark made upon the trunk will 



