ORCHARDS. 115 



over -bearing or barrenness in trees. And he who is ambi- 

 tious to grow fruit of first quality, or to the most profit, 

 should thoroughly understand the peculiar habits of each 

 variety, and the method by which both barren or alternate 

 year bearers may be made to yield a full annual crop of fruit. 



To understand this, we must refer to the trees active in 

 growth. Trees which expend all their forces in the produc- 

 tion of wood growth, can produce little or no fruit. Indeed, 

 it is not possible for any tree to perfect a fruit germ, and not 

 again in some way disorganize it, unless the wood growth shall 

 cease, in time for the leaves to elaborate food enough to grow 

 both leaf and fruit the following year, or, until a part of the 

 leaves shall attain to nearly or quite their full size. That 

 this is so will be apparent, when we consider that the leaves, 

 which first appear in the Spring, were formed in the buds the 

 previous year, perfect in all their parts, and in the embryo 

 state contained each individual cell found in them when fully 

 grown. But we are asked, if there is no addition to the 

 number of cells, how do the leaves grow ? The answer is, 

 that the only difference we can see between an embryo leaf 

 and one full grown, is in the size of the leaf cells. As growth 

 begins in the Spring, these small cells, which we found in the 

 previous year, begin to expand ; each individual cell thus en- 

 larges until the whole of the numerous cells of which the 

 leaves are composed are of full size. 



To further illustrate this, let us suppose in a brick wall that 

 each brick at the same time were gradually to expand several 

 hundred times its present diameter, and you have just what 

 takes place in the growth of an embryo leaf. Here we find 

 the tree in possession of a full grown leaf. This leaf did 

 not form itself, but \^as formed by the tree in the preceding 

 year. To produce and sustain this cellular enlargement, 

 there had been stored the previous year a large share of nu- 

 triment in the buds and in other parts of the tree. This nu- 

 triment, or plant food, must not only be sufiicient to feed the 

 embryo leaves, but must also be sufficient to produce the 

 small warty excrescenses, the rootlets and spongioles. Those 

 leaves and spongioles first grown were made, with the excep- 



