BUDS. 19 



must acquire a certain maturity, either natural or forced, 

 in order to produce blossoms or fruit. A tree that is fur- 

 nished with a rich, humid soil, containing an abundance of 

 watery nutriment, and left in all respects unrestrained in 

 its upward growth, may attain the age of ten or fifteen 

 years before it commences to form fruit buds ; whilst in a 

 soil of a different quality, dry and less favorable to rapid 

 growth, or if constrained in its growth by being grafted on 

 some particular stock, or by some particular mode of train- 

 ing, it may produce fruit in two or three years. 



An apple tree on a common stock, planted out in ordi- 

 nary orchard soil, does not usually bear until it is in most 

 cases seven years old from the bud, often more ; wdiilst the 

 same variety grafted or budded on a paradise apj^le stocls: 

 will produce in two or three at most. We frequently see 

 one branch of a tree that has been accidentally j^laced in 

 a more horizontal position than the other parts, or that has 

 been tightly compressed with a bandage or something of 

 that sort, bear fruit abundantly ; whilst the erect, uncon- 

 strained portion of the tree gives no sign of fruitfulness 

 whatever. As a general thing, we find that where there 

 is an abundant and constant supply of sap or nutriment 

 furnished to the roots of trees and conveyed by them 

 through the unrestrained channels which the large cells 

 and porous character of young wood afford, the whole 

 forces of the tree will be spent in the production of new 

 shoots ; but that as trees grow old, the cells become small- 

 er, and the tree being also more branched the free course 

 of the saj) is obstructed, and becomes in consequence bet- 

 ter elaborated, or in other words more mature^ and com- 

 mences the production of fruit. Circumstances similar in 

 all respects to these and answering exactly the same pur- 

 pose, can be produced by art at an early age of the tree ; 

 and this is one of the leading points in the culture and 

 management of garden trees, where smallness of size and 



