342 PRUNING. 



a stove, obtained three crops of figs from the same tree in the course of one 

 year. Three crops of grapes from the same vine have also been obtained by the 

 same means (Ann. Hort. Soc. Paris, tome ii. p. 361), a practice, it would ap- 

 pear, known to Pliny. The principal uses of stopping, however, are to promote 

 the setting and swelling of fruit, either on the shoot of the current year, as in 

 the case of the vine and the melon, or at its base, as in the case of the peach. 

 By stopping the stem of the tobacco -plant, and of the basil, above the third or 

 fourth leaf, the leaves acquire an extraordinary degree of magnitude and suc- 

 culence, and the same result is sometimes produced with common spinach and 

 the curled parsley. By stopping flower-bearing shoots after they have shown 

 their flower buds, and removing these, as in the case of annual flowers, the 

 strawberry, the raspberry, the rose, &c., the blossoming and fruit-bearing 

 seasons are retarded ; as they are accelerated by stopping all the shoots on a 

 plant that are not blossom-bearing. The growing point of monocotyledonous 

 plants, such as palms, Yucca, and even bulbs, is sometimes seared out with 

 a hot iron, (which by charring it prevents its putrefaction,) to occasion the pro- 

 duction of side suckers for propagation; and the same thing has been done with 

 the side suckers and crown of the Pine-apple plant, to throw the nourishment 

 which would have gone to the increase of these parts into the fruit. Much 

 of the winter pruning of trees might be prevented by stopping the shoots 

 early in summer, provided the state of the tree did not require that the 

 shoots should be allowed to grow their full length in order to send down 

 nutriment to the increase of the roots, in consequence of which greater 

 vigour is in turn imparted to the stem and branches. In this case of pruning, 

 as in every other, the state of the tree, and a variety of circumstances con- 

 nected with it, require to be taken into consideration. 



769. Disbarking includes two distinct operations : the removal of coarse 

 loose outside bark to admit of the swelling of the inner bark and the alburnum 

 by the returning sap, and the removal of a ring of both outer and inner bark, 

 with a view to the interruption of the returning sap. The removal of old 

 bark is an operation chiefly performed with old fruit trees in orchards, for 

 the sake partly of getting rid of lichens and mosses, and partly to remove 

 crevices which might harbour insects. It is also practised on the stems of 

 old vines for the latter purpose ; one effect of removing the loose outer bark 

 of any stem, being to increase its susceptibility of suffering from changes of 

 temperature and moisture, it may therefore often be more injurious than 

 useful. Disbarking for the tanner consists in removing the whole of the 

 bark, and is best performed in spring, when in consequence of the abundance 

 of ascending sap, the bark separates easily from the wood. 



770. Ringing. This operation consists in taking off a narrow ring of bark 

 from a stem or branch, or even from a root, the object of which is to check 

 the returning sap and force it to expand itself among the leaves, flowers, or 

 fruit, which are situated above the incision. The ring of bark taken off 

 varies in width from a sixteenth to half an inch or an inch, and its depth is 

 always equal to that of both outer and inner bark. In general the width of 

 the ring taken off should not be greater than the tree has the power of 

 recovering with bark, during the same or the following year. The operation 

 may be performed at any season, but its effects will only be rendered obvious 

 when the plant is in leaf; because at other seasons there is little or no sap 

 elaborated to be returned. Compressing the bark by a ligature of wire or 

 cord, or by a mass of Roman cement put on like the clay of a graft, produces 



