GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



length (fig. 11) ; the buds are long, narrow, and promi- 

 nent, and the first year or two after their appearance, 

 produce but rosettes of leaves, yielding fruit generally 

 about the third year. On trees 

 well furnished with fruit-spurs, 

 these slender branches are of little 

 account, but they are useful on 

 young trees itot fully in a bearing 

 state. They are generally pro- 

 duced on the lower or older parts 

 of the branches or stem, and, in 

 the first place, are slender shoots 

 with wood-buds only ; but owing 

 to their unfavorable position and 

 feeble structure, they receive only 

 a small portion of the ascending 

 sap, and the consequence is, they 

 become stunted, and transformed 

 into fruit-branches. In pruning 

 young trees, slender shoots are 

 frequently bent over, or fastened 

 in a crooked position to transform 

 them into fruit-branches of this 

 kind ; but this will be treated of 

 in its proper place. 



Certain varieties of apples have 

 a natural habit of bearing the fruit 

 on the points of the lateral shoots ; 

 and frequently these terminal 

 fruit-buds are formed during the 

 first season's growth of the shoot. Fig. 12 is an example ; 

 A, is the point where a fruit was borne last season ; It, a 

 shoot of last season ; and (7, its terminal bud, which is a 

 fruit-bud. The fruit-branches of the peach, apricot, and 

 nectarine, are productions of one season's growth ; the 

 fruit-buds form one season and blossom the next ; but as 



Fig. 11. Fig. 12. 



Fig. 11, slender fruit-branch 

 of the apple all the buds arc 

 fruit-buds. Fig. 12, a branch 

 of the apple showing the 

 tendency of some varieties to 

 bear on the points of the 

 branches. A, the point where 

 the fruit was borne last sea- 

 son ; B, a shoot of last year ; 

 C, its terminal fruit-bud. 



