614 REMARKS APPLICABLE TO FRUIT-TREES GENERALLY. 



hay, netting (1320), or some other means ; but as this is only applicable to 

 wall trees, the soil for all others should be so adjusted to the climate as to 

 ensure their wood ripening in the open garden or orchard. As the most 

 exhausting part of every fruit is the seed, and as the number of seeds in 

 every fruit is limited by nature, it follows that a few fruit grown to a large 

 size will be less injurious to a plant than the same weight of fruit pro- 

 duced in fruits of small size. As in plants in a state of seed-bearing, the 

 chief energies of the plant are directed to the nourishment of the seed, so in 

 those fruit-bearing plants in which the fruit is gathered green, such as 

 cucumbers, gourds, capsicums, peas, beans, kidney-beans, &c. ; none of 

 the fruit should be allowed to mature any seed, so long as any of it is 

 gathered in an unripe state. Hence the immense importance of thinning 

 out the blossom-buds of trees before they expand, and thinning out the fruit 

 before the embryo of the seed begins to assume that stage which in berries 

 and pomes is called setting, and in nuts and stone fruit, stoning. When a fruit 

 is once set or stoned, if the embryo of the seed be destroyed by the depo- 

 sition in it of the eggs of an insect, or the puncture of a needle, the fruit, if 

 it does not fall off, will ripen earlier, but will be in most cases of inferior 

 flavour. The same result will take place to a limited extent even with 

 leaves, when they are punctured. 



Any check given to the head of a tree, such as disleafing, the attacks of 

 insects, disease, overbearing, &c., has a tendency to cause the plant to throw 

 up suckers, if it is natural to the root or stock to do so. As the leaves pro- 

 duced at the base of a young shoot are small and generally soon drop off, so the 

 buds in the axils of such leaves are never blossom-buds till they have become 

 invigorated by at least another year's growth ; and hence when young wood 

 is shortened, if blossom is the immediate object it ought not to be cut farther 

 back than to the first large bud. This is particularly applicable in the 

 case of vines, roses, &c. In shortening such wood on spur-bearing trees, 

 such as the apple and pear, only one or two of the imperfect buds are left 

 at the base of the shoot (see p. 639, Winter Pruning), and these the follow- 

 ing year generally become blossom-buds, if the tree is neither too weak 

 nor too luxuriant. In general, winter pruning a young tree retards the 

 period of its fruit-bearing, but greatly increases the vigour of the tree ; 

 hence delicate trees, such as the peach, require more pruning than very 

 hardy trees, such as the apple and plum. 



" Summer pruning effects various objects : it exposes the fruit, where it 

 exists, and also the embryo fruit-buds, and leaves connected with them, to 

 the beneficial influence of light, air, and dews. This is effected by removing 

 those portions of shoots which as they advance would more and more shade 

 the lower parts and prevent them in a great measure from deriving advantage 

 from the above important agencies as regards vegetation; these may be termed 

 mechanical effects. Physiologically considered, the progress of the sap is 

 limited by summer pruning, and is directed towards the leaves and buds 

 on the lower parts of shoots, which are in consequence invigorated, more 

 especially as their free exposure to light, &c., enables them better to elabo- 

 rate this increased supply. But although the foliage so left to act is 

 increased in size and efficiency, yet the agency of this portion in producing 

 roots is notwithstanding less powerful than the whole mass would be if the 

 shoots were allowed to grow wild throughout the summer ; for in propor- 

 tion to the mass of healthy foliage so is the increase of roots. Hence 



