EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN. 553 



and as tlie principal flow of sap is always directed to the extreme points of 

 shoots, the highest buds are most fully developed. If, therefore, pruning is 

 delayed till spring, this accumulation is cut and thrown away, and to that ex- 

 tent the plant is weakened. Early winter pruning is eminently advantageous 

 to native grapes. As the retained buds become charged with sap during 

 winter, they start vigorously and advance rapidly — a matter of much moment 

 where the summers are rather short for ripening the fruit and wood of these 

 plants. 



There is a tendency in many varieties of trees to form strong central growths 

 at the expense of the side branches, more especially while the plants are 

 young. Pruning these strong shoots in winter only increases the evil, unless 

 summer pruning is attended to by pinching out the ends of every shoot before 

 it gains sufficient headway to injure the growth of the lower branches. Strong 

 growths should be pruned in summer and weak ones in winter. In the man- 

 agement of hedges, where uniformity of growth is all-important, this rule should 

 be constantly kept in view. 



When the size of a tree is the only object sought, summer pruning should 

 not be practiced. But it may be said that pruning of any kind is a negative 

 operation, and probably it is within the limits of possibility that trees may be 

 trained to any form, and maintained in a fruitful condition without any instru- 

 mental pruning whatever, unless to remedy disease and casualties. It is much 

 easier, for instance, to rub off a bud in May than it is to cut out a branch in 

 December; and if a judicious system of disbudding and pinching was strictly 

 followed, there would be no occasion for winter pruning ; or. were it possible 

 to place a tree in such a soil, and under such conditions that it would only 

 make a moderate growth of well-matured wood, little, if any, pruning would 

 be required. But as all of these conditions are difficult to realize in happy 

 combination, we have to resort to pruning, and a knowledge of the principles 

 involved will materially assist the operator. 



EXPEDIENTS FOR PROMOTING FRUITFULNESS IN PLANTS. 



All expedients for inducing early fruiting are founded upon the well-known 

 law that excessive growth and great prolificness cannot simultaneously exist 

 in the same plant. Some of the most familiar modes of inducing fruit are as 

 under : 



1. BY DWARFING. 



In pomological parlance, trees are said to be dicarfed when grafted or bud- 

 ded on stocks of weaker growth than themselves. Thus we have the pear on 

 the quince, the cherry on the mahelab, the apple on the Paradise stock, the peach 

 on the plum, &c. This is a popular and efficient mode of rendering trees 

 fruitful. Properly speaking, any low tree is dwarf ; the term when applied to 

 a system is merely technical. 



2. BY BENDING THE BRANCHES. 



This process practically consists in allowing the branches of a young tree 

 to grow undisturbed by the pruning knife for several years until the plant 

 attains considerable size ; the young shoots are then bent down and secured to 

 pegs fastened in the ground. This mode is eminently adapted for standard 

 pear trees, especially such varieties as Dix, Bartlett, Sheldon, and others that 

 make long yearly shoots ; these when bent down soon become studded thickly 

 with blossom spurs, and very ornamental and symmetrical trees can be formed 

 by a little attention to the bending and regulating the shoots ; the pendent 

 form soon becomes fixed, and trees so treated are certain to be productive. 

 The proper season to commence tying down is the month of August ; the 



