362 Ringing Fruit Trees, with a notice of 



Brussels, Professor Van Mons, has turned his attention to 

 this subject, and, as usual, has added very considerably to our 

 stock of information respecting its effects. 



Professor Van Mons has confined his experiments chiefly to 

 the pear, and announces that he has discovered two new conse- 

 quences attending the application of ringing upon this tree, the 

 chief of which is the great stimulus given to the growth of the 

 branch operated upon, accelerating its development, both in 

 length and circumference, as well as a more rapid subdivision of 

 branches. 



M. Van Mons, in selecting branches for ringing, gives the 

 preference to those situated upon middle-sized pyramid or 

 qucnouille formed trees, and, also, to such as are at least equal 

 in size to those surrounding them. The incision is made upon 

 a branch about two inches in diameter, in order that it may be 

 furnished with the greater number of buds. The year following, 

 when the wound has partially healed, the branch will be found to 

 have acquired double the size of its neighbors, the next year 

 triple, the succeeding one quadruple — and so on in succession, 

 until the branch operated upon, by its greater rapidity of growth, 

 eventually takes the place of the stem, when the influence of the 

 operation gradually ceases. The fourth season the cicatrice is 

 so complete, that the wound is only to be distinguished by a few 

 wrinkles. It is necessary, in order that the branch operated up- 

 on may experience this superior acceleration of growth, that it 

 should be one of the principal shoots which has a direction nearly 

 perpendicular, or but little oblique. Those which have an up- 

 right growth, parallel to the main stem, have of course an advan- 

 tage over the oblique ones. Ringing does not appear to produce 

 any acceleration of growth in the vegetation of horizontal shoots, 

 the vigor remaining the same in the untouched branches as in that 

 operated upon. This latter lengthens slowly, with but little ex- 

 tension of branches, but all of its lateral buds come into a fruit- 

 ing state. The wound is longer in healing in the horizontal 

 branches, and the crops are as liable to fail as upon the other 

 branches; whilst upon the perpendicular branches operated upon, 

 M. Van Mons has never witnessed a complete failure of fruit, 

 even in the worst and most unfavorable seasons. 



At the fourth, or, at the latest, the fifth year, the branches 

 upon which the incision has been made, and which have been 

 subject to the artificial acceleration of growth, resume again that 

 slate of natural luxuriance common to the rest of the tree, w^hile 

 they are not more liable to blight or disease than the other branch- 

 es. At the same time when the branches operated upon return 

 to a natural state, those which are below the incision come into 

 bearing; but the fruit produced by the latter is yet small, harsh, 



