66 Autumn-Trcatmeiit of OnJiards. 



The reason that summer-pruning induces fruitfulness is that it lessens 

 the means of exhaustion, and thereby invigorates the remaining branches 

 at the season when the germs of the future crop are forming. 



Nor is the injury to the crop the only evil from neglect or other causes 

 resulting in defective nutrition. It is doubtless the last and closing act of 

 the season to deposit in the tissues of the tree nutriment for the early 

 growth of the leaves and fruit-buds. As the leaves are the elaborating or- 

 gans, there can be no nutriment elaborated till they are formed : hence the 

 necessity for such deposit. 



The grain of wheat or corn contains nutriment for the expanding germ, 

 and sustains it till the organs of nutrition are produced. 



The grape or currant cutting furnishes food to sustain its growth until 

 the rootlets are formed ; and such is the universal law or requirement of 

 Nature as applied to both vegetable and animal growth. 



The cultivator should see that the requirements of Nature are met, and 

 that no untoward influence interferes to thwart her designs at that critical 

 period. 



If the soil ceases to furnish the necessary food for the tree, or if exces- 

 sive drought exhausts the moisture, rendering the soil so dry and compacted 

 as to check the growth prematurely before the fruit-germs are developed, 

 there can be no blossoms ; or the blossoms will prove abortions, and the 

 fruit will fall prematurely, or be scabby and defective ; or, in extreme cases, 

 the star\'ed tree will, in its efforts to perform its functions, exhaust itself; 

 the bark will die, and loosen at the collar or base of the limbs, producing 

 permanent injury or death. 



An occasional season occurs when cuttings unaccountably fail to grow, 

 although the spring season seems favorable. The cause is evidently starva- 

 tion by excessive drought or other cause the previous autumn. 



If the young shoots taken for cuttings are deprived of generous nourish- 

 ment at the close of the growing season, they will not contain the necessary 

 material to develop a perfect plant ; the buds will burst, and make a feeble 

 growth : but the elements of growth are exhausted before roots are formed ; 

 and the cutting dies from exhaustion, as the nursery-man observes to his 

 sorrow. The cause and e.Tect are the same in the fruit-bud and the 

 cuttinir. 



