232 



THE FLORIST AND POMOLOQIST. 



[ October, 



with our semi-bare walls as the' spring frosts of this. I admit that it is difiBcult 

 to explain how even that can cover all the observed facts, the capricious 

 flowering, for instance, of apricots in successive battalions of blossom. Instead 

 of all coming together, they opened in companies of 50 to 200 at a time, and 

 after a week another succession, and so on several times. Again, the blossoms 

 set as capriciously as they opened. We have some crowded with golden fruit, 



Maclpha tricuspidata (young state), see p. 233. 



more almost bare, and very thin. But then the blossoms themselves were not 

 all alike. Some were utterly worthless, others middling, a few all right. Neither 

 do I deny that a few, perhaps a good many, of each sort got frost-bitten. But 

 my point is, that but a small per-centage of the evil came of the spring frost ; 

 that it was laid anterior to it ; and that had no frost come, Peaches, Nectarines, 

 or Apricots on the open walls would have been a semi-failure this summer. 



The foundation of barrenness or fruitfulness is laid months before. If 

 autumnal suns fail to finish or mature the buds, it is in vain that wooing zephyrs, 

 dews, and sunshine bid them come forth and grow into perfect fruits. Be the 

 spring ever so genial, they cannot in such case do it. It is like asking a parolytic 

 to leap, dance, or run with an athlete : be the road or course ever so smooth, 

 he cannot do it. It is even so with the ciippled buds. No geniality of season, 

 no !>lieltin- of glass even, can bring a perfect fiuit out of an imperfect, and the 

 skill of the cultivator should be directed rather to the formation of strong buds than 



