14 Leading Principles of the Growth of Trees. 



Leaf and flower buds, b, b, flower buds , 

 c, c, leaf buds. 



sents a portion of the branch of a pear-tree, and b, b, b, are flowei 



or fruit-buds on the extremi- 

 ties of short spurs termed 

 fruit-spurs ; and c, is a leaf- 

 bud on a one-year shoot. B 

 exhibits these two kinds of 

 buds as seen on the cherry, 

 b, b, being the rounded fruit- 

 buds, and c, c, the sharper 

 leaf-buds. 



Causes of this difference. 

 When young trees grow ra- 

 pidly, all their buds are leaf- 

 buds ; when they become 

 older and grow more feebly, 

 many of them become flower 

 or fruit-buds. One is the re- 

 sult of rapid, and the other 

 of slow growth. Check the 

 growth of a young tree by 



transplanting it, or by root-pruning, or by neglecting cultivation, or 

 allowing it to grow with grass, and many fruit-buds will be found 

 upon it, and it will bear early. But as the growth is unnaturally 

 enfeebled, the fruit is not always of the best quality. The natural 

 diminution of vigor from increased age furnishes better fruit Fruit- 

 buds are likewise produced by checking the free flow of the sap in 

 grafting on dissimilar stocks ; as, for example, the pear on the quince, 

 producing dwarf pear-trees. The fruit-spurs shown by A, Fig. 3, 

 are nothing more than stunted shoots, originally produced from leaf- 

 buds, but which, making little growth, have become fruit-bearers. 

 The vigorous one-year shoot of the cherry, B, is mostly supplied 

 with leaf-buds, but the short spurs on the second year's wood, which 

 are but dwarfed branches, are covered with fruit-buds, with only a 

 leaf-bud in the centre. 



It is not, however, always the slowest-growing kinds of fruit-trees 

 that bear soonest. There appears to be a constitutional peculiarity, 

 with different sorts, that controls the time of beginning to bear. 

 The Bartlett, Julienne, and Howell pears, vigorous growers, bear 

 much sooner than the Dix and Tyson, which are less vigorous. 



By pruning away a part of the leaf-buds, the fruitfulness of a 

 tree may be increased ; and by pruning away the fruit spurs, bear- 

 ing may be prevented, and more vigor thrown into the shoots. 



