206 PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING. [CH. VI. 



which circumstances render most necessary'. An 

 excess of moisture requires an increased transpira- 

 tory surface, as in the case of Solandra grandiflora 

 before mentioned. 



This knowledge that flower-buds and leaf-buds are 

 mutually convertible is no novel discovery, much less 

 a visionaiy theory, for, as long ago as the beginning 

 of 1817, the late Mr. Knight thus expressed the 

 results of his experience, when writing to the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society relative to the pruning of 

 peach-trees : — " The buds of fmit-trees, which pro- 

 duce blossoms, and those which afford leaves only, 

 in the spring, do not at all differ from each other, in 

 their first organization, as buds. Each contains the 

 rudiments of leaves only, which are subsequently 

 transformed into the component parts of the blos- 

 som, and, in-some species, as the fruit also." And 

 he then proceeds to state his experience that leaf- 

 buds of the apple and pear have been thus trans- 

 formed, and of his ha\'ing succeeded in obtaining 

 every gradation of monstrous transfonnation, adding, 

 that " eveiy bunch of grapes commences its forma- 

 tion as a tendril, it being always within the power of 

 every cultivator to occasion it to remain a tendril," 

 either by removing a considerable portion of the 

 leaves, or reducing the temperature and light to 

 which the vine is exposed. 



A deficiency of light decreases the decomposing 



