72 EXPERIMENTS IN BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 



as soon as the leaf is fully developed. After a few weeks the external 

 scales of the bud turn brown and the bud then goes into a condition 

 of dormancy, unless it is forced into growth through an injury to the 

 twig or some other unusual circumstance. In most of the buds this 

 dormant condition continues through the summer, fall, and winter. 

 If the plant is in condition to lay down flowering buds, however, a 

 new sort of activity appears in the late summer or autumn. One or 

 uiore of the leaf buds near the end of a twig start to grow. The two 

 brown scales are spread apart, new green scales appear between them, 

 and a large, fat, flowering bud is formed. The bud does not, how- 

 ever, continue its growth at this time, but its green new scales turn 

 brown and the condition of dormancy is again resumed before cold 

 weather comes on. 



The flowering buds thus develop out of buds which are in no way 

 distinguishable from leaf buds. They are, in fact, leaf buds until 

 their transformation takes place, and except for such transformation 

 they would remain leaf buds. Furthermore, it has been found ex- 

 perimentally that after the formation of flowering buds has been 

 completed, leaf buds still lower on the twig can be forced by suitable 

 treatment to transform themselves into flowering buds. Such an ex- 

 periment was made, as follows : 



On August 24, 1909, at Lanham, Md., a vigorous bush of Vdrciriiimi 

 atroeoccniin was selected, which had already laid down its flowering 

 buds for the succeeding year. Two branches of nearly equal size, 

 about 16 inches long, one with 14 twigs and 53 flowering buds, the 

 other with 16 twigs and 48 flowering buds, were chosen for the ex- 

 periment. On the branch containing the 48 flowering buds each twig- 

 was cut otf at a point between its lowermost flowei'ing bud and its 

 uppermost leaf bucl, with the object of ascertaining whether any of 

 the leaf buds on the stub of the twig would transform themselves 

 into flowering buds. The other branch was left unpruned as a check, 

 to show whether the normal laying down of flower buds had in reality 

 been completed on August 24. On October 1. 1909, the two twigs were 

 again examined. The pruned branch had laid down 31 new flowering 

 buds, which in all cases were the transformed upper leaf buds on the 

 stubs of the twigs. On the check branch only 1 new flowering bud 

 had been laid down. 



The best method of pruning the swamp blueberry is yet to be 

 devised, but if a superficial jjruning, like that of a hedge, proves to 

 be a good method of stimulating vigorous growth, it is evident from 

 this experiment that the most advantageous time to do the prun- 

 ing, if a crop is to be secured the next year, is after the berries are 

 gathered and about the time when the bush is forming its next year's 

 flowering buds. It will then lay down new flowering buds on the 

 cut stubs. If the pruning were done in late autumn, in the winter, 

 19a 



