THINNING THE FRUIT. 351 



TJiinnhig fruit. Cultivators often speak of the 

 " bearing years " of their trees, or the season when 

 they produce a full crop. These fruitless years are 

 the results of the exhaustion produced by the crop 

 of the year previous ; and the tree or plant has not 

 strength enough, after maturing the fruit, to pro- 

 duce fruit-buds for the next season. This is par- 

 ticularly true with regard to late varieties. In the 

 chapter upon pruning, it was stated that the fruit- 

 buds were formed during the cool weather of the 

 autumn, and this is the very time when the tree is 

 taxed, in the producing year, in maturing the fruit. 

 Summer varieties feel this strain upon their energies 

 at an earlier part of the season, and recuperate 

 before the time for the growth of the blossom-buds, 

 and the consequence is that such sorts usually bear 

 annually. If art can lessen the debility produced 

 by the bearing year, and result in a full crop an- 

 nually, it will be a triumph ; and yet so it is. 



The flesh of the fruit is formed like any other 

 green part of the tree ; its cells are similar, as is 

 the duty it is called on to perform in the elaboration 

 of the sap. This portion, therefore, which we 

 desire for food, is rather a strengthening than a 

 weakening ally to the foliage. It is the production 

 of offspring, wdiich exhausts the strength of plants 

 as well as of animals ; and this reproducing germ 

 in fruit is formed in the seed. As soon as the an- 

 nual has matured its seed, it droops and dies. It 



