18 GENERAL PRmCIPLES. 



liglit gray edges. In the JosepMne de Maline pear the 

 buds are quite remarkable for their roundness, bluntness 

 and prominence. If shoots of th^ Bartlett and Sechel 

 pears, two well known varieties, be compared, although 

 they present no decidedly obvious peculiarities, yet they 

 will be found very different. Those of the Sechel are 

 much broader at the base, more pointed, and lighter 

 colored, being a dark drab^ wdiilst those of the Bartlett 

 are reddish. These miscellaneous instances are chosen 

 simply to draw attention to these points, and to show the 

 ordinary modes of comparison. When w^e speak of leaf 

 buds, we have reference only to the simple bud and not 

 to the large, pointed, spur-like productions frequently pro- 

 duced towards the middle or lower part of young shoots 

 that have made a second growth, that is where growth 

 has ceased for a wliile and the terminal bud has been 

 formed, and afterwards, in the same season, commenced 

 anew, and made a second growth. 



8. Fruit Buds. — In the early stages of tlieir formation 

 and growth all buds are but leaf buds. Thus, on a young 

 shoot of the cherry and the plum, for example, of one sea- 

 son's growth, the buds are all leaf buds. The next spring 

 a part of these produce new shoots, and others are 

 transformed into fruit buds that will bear fruit the follow- 

 ing season. The transformation is accomplished during 

 the second year of their existence, and it usually happens 

 that they are the smallest and least fully developed 

 that are so transformed : the more vigorous pushing into 

 branches. In the peach, the apricot, e^c, on which the 

 fruit buds are produced in one year, the change from a 

 leaf to a fruit bud occurs towards the latter part of the sea- 

 son. The primary cause of the transformation of leaf into 

 fruit buds is not satisfactorily known, although many theo- 

 ries exist on the subject. Observation, however, has taught 

 us many things in relation to it. It seems that all trees 



