THEORY OF PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 



VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY— THEORY OF PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 



BY P. BARRY, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



In tracing the history of the arts and sciences, we are not unfrequently surprised at the 

 particular, and in some cases very remarkable events or circumstances that have given 

 life and development to certain branches; and in fact this constitutes one of the most in- 

 teresting, if not instructive, features of such a study. Printing, Navigation, Astronomy, 

 the application of steam and electricity, all of which are exercising the most unbounded 

 influence upon the world, have moved forward with various degrees of progress, from in- 

 distinct and almost unintelligible glimmerings, to their present amazing development. 



For long ages they may have been neglected, overlooked, scarcely spoken of; when all 

 at once, some accidental occurrence, perfectly unimportant in itself— some individual taste 

 or caprice, or perhaps some general and wide-spread necessity, called forth by the chang- 

 ing conditions or pursuits of a class, or a community, induces a spirit of research and in- 

 quiry, forming a new epoch from which to date a real intelligent progress. The progres- 

 sive history of the study of vegetable physiology, is, to the student of nature, no less than 

 to the practical cultivator, replete with interest and instruction; and its future history will 

 be still more so, vastly more so, than the past. The most difficult, and the most impor- 

 tant points, yet await a satisfactory solution. This study just begins to take root in Ame- 

 rican minds, and it might strike into a less genial soil. A necessity has called attention to 

 it — a necessity which every day increases in magnitude, as the interest which has created 

 it becomes wider and deeper. 



Necessity is not only " the mother of invention," as the old adage goes, but it is the 

 mother of study and research. In America we have all the ordinary inducements to a 

 study of nature, bestowed upon us with a bountiful and unsparing hand. What other 

 people on earth have been blessed with such a glorious domain, extending over so many 

 degrees of latitude; embracing so many climates, from the frozen north to the tropics; 

 such an almost endless variety of vegetation, from the lofty and powerful oak to the lowly 

 moss? 



We are, moreover, a nation of cultivators. Our great pursuit. Agriculture, M'hich is 

 fa-r above and beyond all others, in its paramount importance, dooms us to a life among 

 the vegetable productions of the earth; and it is a truth now undisputed, that our success 

 in this pursuit depends no less upon our comprehension of the laws that control and regu- 

 late the life of plants, than on our industry in carrying out the practical teachings of ex- 

 perience. 



Yet and withal, the science of vegetable physiology has remained up to this period, all 

 but a dead letter amongst us. The ordinary routine of practical agriculture is profitable, 

 and to a great extent successful, without it; but at length a special necessity for its study 

 makes its appearance. A certain branch of culture, under certain circumstances, demands 

 it; cannot be successfully and satisfactorily prosecuted without it; that branch is Fruit 

 trees. They are not practical farmers and gardeners alone, who, in this country, and in 

 these days, are engaged and engaging in fruit and fruit tree culture — but learned and high- 

 ly cultivated men, from the pulpit, the bar, the press, and all other intellectual pursuits. 

 These men come into the fruit garden and the nursery, not like those who are " to the 

 manor born," with skillful, practiced hands, and minds overflowing with old fashioned 

 experience, but strangers to everything, and novices in everything; no obstinate dogmas 

 to contend with; all to be sought for and learned. They turn at once to books. Her 



