DEBARKING. 43 



ture, applied in the preceding summer, in such cases, he 

 has found to answer all the purposes of ringing, with far 

 less injurious consequences to the tree. 



Girdling, according to Mr. Knight, by causing the cur- 

 rent of the sap, while descending from the leaves through 

 the bark, to become arrested in its progress, it accumulates 

 above the decorticated place, whence it is repulsed, and 

 again carried upwards, to be expended in an increased pro- 

 duction of blossom buds and of fruit; while the part be- 

 low, being but ill supplied with nutriment, ceases almost to 

 grow, and in consequence it operates feebly in impelling 

 the ascending current of sap through the decorticated 

 space. And the parts above, being, in consequence, less 

 abundantly supplied with moisture, the early maturity is 

 thus powerfully accelerated, as is always the case in a 

 drought, from whatever cause produced. 



Mr. Knight, from his long experience, is not friendly to 

 the practice of ringing or girdling in any mode, except only 

 in those few cases, where blossoms cannot otherwise be 

 obtained, or where a single crop of very early fruit ex- 

 ceeds the value of the tree. 



Decortication may be practised alternately, on portions 

 of the same tree in alternate years. 



SUBS. 2d. DEBARKING. Debarking, according to Mr. 

 Neill, is a practice first brought into notice by Sir Jolm 

 Sinclair, in 1815, in a pamphlet. It consists in paring off, 

 in winter, all the outer bark of the stem and principal 

 branches, down to the liber, or inner concentric bark. 

 The effect is, that such plants grow more vigorously, and 

 the quantity and quality of the fruit are greatly augmented. 



Mr. London has recorded, (Mag. Vol. vn. p. 662,) that 

 this operation has been declared, by one of the best prac- 

 tical men in the Netherlands, a never-failing method of 

 greatly improving the quality and size of the fruit on apple 

 and pear trees, and vines. At the winter pruning, which 

 is given there in February, he cuts off, with his common 

 hooked pruning knife, all the outer bark down to the liber, 

 of every tree above eight or ten years old ; not so deeply, 

 however, with the young, as with the old trees. It is as- 

 serted by those who have witnessed, that this man's prac- 

 tice has never failed of being successful. And another, 

 who has tried it in that country, asserts, that since he had 



