CHAPTER XII. 



TERMS USED IN DESCRIBING FRUITS. 



IT is only by a uniform and definite use of terms, that 

 descriptions can be made intelligible to the reader. A full 

 explanation of these terms hence becomes a matter of im- 

 portance. Distinctive characters should be permanent, and 

 not liable to variation with a change of locality, soil, season, 

 or climate ; or, if variable, the nature of such variation 

 should be distinctly pointed out. To assist the cultivator 

 the more fully to understand written descriptions, the devo- 

 tion of a few pages to a clear explanation of the terms used 

 in this work, may prove useful. 



/. Growth of the tree, shoots, and leaves. 



The form of growth often affords a good distinctive cha- 

 racter of varieties, not liable to great variation. Young 

 trees, only a few years old, usually exhibit peculiarities of 

 growth more conspicuously, than old trees, of irregular 

 spreading branches. Hence, in all cases, where this cha- 

 racter is mentioned, it refers to young trees not more than 

 three or four years from the bud or graft, unless otherwise 

 expressed. 



1. Shoots are erect, when they rise nearly perpendicularly 

 from the main trunk or stem, as in the Early Strawberry 

 apple and Bartlett pear, fig. 62. 



Diverging, when they deviate from the perpendicular at 

 an angle of about forty-five degrees, considerable variation 

 being found in the same tree ; as in the Domine and Ribston 

 Pippin, fig. 63. 



Spreading, when they more nearly approach a horizontal 

 direction, as in most trees of the Rhode Island Greening, 

 fig. 64. 



Drooping, when they fall below the horizontal, a form 



