172 THE PRINCIPLES OF PRUNING 



change could be determined on the bud. It remained dor- 

 mant, and thereby passed naturally to its destruction, 

 whether more rapidly than other buds not artificially in- 

 fluenced, we have so far not been able to determine. In 

 many other cases, a sprout did develop which sometimes 

 grew into a long shoot. This appearance made the matter 

 very unclear, until it was noticed that in such cases the cuts 

 had not been made with the care which they require. The 

 bark and bast layers had been removed, but at the same 

 time the younger layers of wood had been injured, as ap- 

 peared very prominently in longitudinal sections. 



" There yet remains the notching into the wood below a 

 bud, and this, again, must be looked upon as a partial cut- 

 ting-back. Through such a notch the bud is cut off from 

 the root, and the cambium fluids are piled up at the bud, 

 which is, therefore, too abundantly supplied with reserve 

 materials without being itself caused to grow. The result 

 is similar to the notching into the bark, only the wound is 

 larger, and therefore takes a longer time to heal. The 

 deeper the sap -carrying wood -layers are cut, the less is the 

 tendency of the bud to develop a shoot, and it usually re- 

 mains as a well -developed fruit-bud without any clearly 

 observable lengthening of the axis, as though sleeping; or 

 it develops a leaf rosette, in order to bear fruit the next 

 year. A notch in younger wood, so executed between two 

 buds that both are equally influenced, results always in a 

 woody shoot from the lower one and a fruit-bud, or a very 

 small fruit- spur terminated by a fruit-bud, from the upper 

 one; the woody shoot is self -active, the fruit-bud seem- 

 ingly a parasitic creation. As the notch into the bark under 

 the buds, with reference to the production of fruit-spurs, 

 has generally the same effect as a notch into the wood, the 

 latter is superfluous. A slight damage to the outer wood 

 (splintschicht), however, does not in any way lessen the 

 expected result. 

 "While in the foregoing we have kept in view the effect of 



