AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 257 



Johnston, colored solutions reach the leaves through the circu- 

 lation more rapidly than in the spring. The theory may be 

 sound, but it does not seem so. If a branch be girdled to in- 

 duce fruiting, it does not continue to bleed ; its tubes may 

 therefore be reckoned as closed at the descending end. If the 

 mouth of a full siphon be closed, how can its contents " accu- 

 mulate ?" Or, if we may suppose the circulating power to be 

 constituted by the combined forces of what we call the vital 

 principle, temperature, and capillary attraction, then the first 

 is strongest in the rapidly-growing but non-bearing tree ; the 

 second we may assume as equal at the period in which the 

 matter of fruiting is decided ; and the third ought to be greater 

 in the tree of slower or less thrifty growth, for in this case the 

 tubes are usually smaller and less open, and the capillary force 

 is in an inverse, ratio to the diameter of the tube in which it 

 operates. We infer, therefore, that mere rate of circulation has 

 little to do with, or by no means controls the question of fruit- 

 age, but that probably the fullness and character of the supply, 

 in connection with the peculiar constitutional condition of the 

 tree, governs the production of fruit, and not mere rate of move- 

 ment. Or, if it be argued that the organizing matter accumu- 

 lates, while the water is exhaled or perspired from the leaves, 

 this should involve increased wood growth in the girdled limb, 

 the contrary of which results, except to a trifling extent at the 

 upper lip of the girdling cut, where it occurs in a manner sim- 

 ilar in appearance to the formation of the " callus" at the bur- 

 ied end of a branch cutting. See Fig. 82 e,/, p. 197. 



On page 66 of this work we have observed that the most 

 marked feature of vegetable life is its tendency to reproduction. 



All healthful vegetable growth moves toward this end in its 

 appointed natural course, attaining maturity in a longer or 

 shorter period, according to its peculiar constitution, as modi- 

 fied or affected by climate and other circumstances. As a co- 

 rollary of, or at least in connection with this tendency to repro- 

 duction, we find what seems to be a law, that whenever, from 

 any cause, there arises a probability of this result being de- 

 feated, or even a possibility that the individual may perish 

 without accomplishing it, the tendency toward it is immediately 



