620 Jamin's Catalogue raisoime 



vine, and several other fruit-bearing plants. Instead of preserving all these 

 elaborating organs, they divest the tree of the greater number, not only the 

 laterals, but also the points of the fruit-bearing shoots, lest the fruit should be 

 impoverished, and the wood intended to bear the next year's crop diminished, 

 and rendered less fertile. Melon plants are raised and managed so as to pro- 

 duce one large fruit, and when this fairly set on a branch, all the other branches 

 are pruned off, and that bearing the fruit is not only stopped, but is deprived 

 of most of its leaves. Larger fruit are obtained from several other plants b\' 

 relieving them of their summer shoots. This dismemberment of a plant, by 

 robbing it of the organs by which it is said to be chiefly fed, is directly contrary 

 to the opinions of the generality of modern phj'siologists ; and, though their 

 ideas respecting the functions of the leaves are peculiarly applicable to herb- 

 aceous plants in general, there are many exceptions relative to them, as well as 

 among shrubs and trees, some of the latter presenting the anomaly, that the 

 more they are pruned the more vigorous they grow. 



These practical facts are mentioned to show that, with regard to the grape- 

 vine, currant, gooseberry, melon, &c., cultivated for their fruit rather than for 

 their bulk of stem or branches, there does not appear to be any absolute 

 necessity for a dowmvard Jioiu of either vascular processes or of elaborated 

 sap; for, notwithstanding the manager divests the plant of a great portion of 

 its food-supplying members, he is not disappointed in his main object ; and 

 therefore concludes that a very moderate supply (granting that there is any 

 such supply) answers his purpose as well, if not better, than if the plant had 

 been left entire, and in fullest expansion. 



It is a pity, perhaps, that our author did not exercise a little more of his 

 own judgement in these particulars, and had not followed those writers whom 

 he has chosen as his guides so closely. For it is impossible that a person of 

 his philosophical turn of mind could examine what has been written concern- 

 ing the ascent and descent of the sap, the production of woody fibres or 

 vessels from the leaves, and the various and contrary forces or attractions 

 which such phenomena must require, without feeling the difficulty of even 

 conceiving how such circumstances can take place. It is a part of his subject 

 which would have been well worth his closest investigation, before he had been 

 called on to have furnished the present volume. 



Respecting the ascent of the sap, our author embraces the idea of Du- 

 trochet, that it is inducted by endosmose, and that the roots are capable of 

 taking up coloured fluids. He adopts Professor De Candolle's belief respect- 

 ing the excretory powers of vegetables, as well as his system of physiology in 

 general, and likewise his morphology. This agreement with the botanical 

 leaders of the day will gain popularity for the work ; but it is evident that, if 

 he had had more practical knowledge of the subject, and had used his own, 

 instead of the eyes, or rather the conceptions, of others, he would have com- 

 posed a more respectable book : and yet, notwithstanding, it is an entertaining 

 and well written volume, and creditable to the author, whoever he may be. — 

 J. M. Brompton, Oct. 1841. 



Art. II. Catalogue raisonne des Arbres Fruitiers cultives dans les 

 Pepinieres De Jamin {Jean- Laurent), Fleuriste et Pepinieriste, 

 Membre de la Societe Rot/ale d' Horticulture de Paris, Rue de 

 Buffon, 19. 4to, pp. 24. Paris, 1838. 



The following is an extract from the introductory observations : — 



"■Soil. — I observe, first, that fruit trees with stone fruit are less particular 

 with respect to soil than kernel fruits ; and the reason that we plant our peach 

 trees in a rich soil is, because we prune them every year, and force them to 

 produce more new branches and larger fruit than they would produce natu- 



