212 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. ie: om 
girdle them and yourun a little past the place where you started rat 
in to girdle, you will be sure to have a black spot at the place where 
you come out, as the sap cannot circulate between those two places. 
I think vou get the idea. Unless you stop just opposite the place 
where you started in, you had better not start atall. That is the 
place where you will have a black spot every time. 
Mr. Harris: It will show all the wood below for several inches 
down in a few years. 
Mr. Van Houten,(Iowa): This principle of girdling is the same 
in Iowa as itis in Minnesota. We have heard the two extremes here. 
I believe there is a happy medium. I believe there is a certain 
principle which, if observed, will bring good results. If you have 
an apple that is hardy, like the Northern Spy or the Bellflower, and 
can hasten its productiveness by girdling, the danger is in doing it 
out of season. The season to do it is when the cambium layer is 
formed, but if you wait until the sapis thick then it will not cover 
the tree, and the tree will be killed. If you do it before that muci- 
laginous substance is formed you will kill the tree also. Thereisa 
time when you can girdle thetree without injury, the only exception 
being that when the sun is very hot it will blister the tree. If the 
heat is not intense the first twenty-four hours, you may depend on 
it that the tree will live. You can girdle the tree under the con- 
ditions I have told you, and I can guarantee that you can take one 
hundred trees and girdle them every time; you can take off one inch 
or three inches, and I will guarantee that not one in a hundred will 
die; but if you do it too early or too late, it is positive death. I 
would recommend it only in varieties that you can spare, or some- 
thing that you want to fruitearly. By girdling the limb you get 
fruit much earlier, but you want to have judgment enough to know 
when to do it. 
The President: What is the theory of girdling to induce early. 
fruiting? 
Mr. Van Houten, (Iowa): It stops the downward flow of the sap 
and causes the fruit buds to perfect themselves for next year. 
The President: It induces a shock to the circulation and growth 
of the tree and that induces early fruiting next season, but it really 
produces no injury to the growth of the tree. Is that right? Now 
if you do this at a season of the year when you do not injure the 
tree, when this cambium layer is formed, or this mucilage is there, 
and it does not produce a shock to the tree, how does it induce fruit- 
ing? 
Mr. Van Houten, (Iowa): I think during the time the sap is cover- 
ing up that wound, that is the time when those fruit buds are formed. 
I have tried it on whole rows of treesand without the loss of a single 
tree. Youcan go on and girdle,and you will find that once ina 
while a tree will live no matter when it is girdled. Some of them 
will have vitality enough to recover; but after about the nee of July 
you will find your trees will die. 
Mr. Dartt: Astherearea great many here who will not ne present 
when my report is'read, I will just say a few words more. I have 
girdleda good many trees; I have girdled, I think, not less than one 
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