200 ON THE EARLY PUBERTY OF THE PEACH-TREE. 



artificial heat, I might succeed in obtaining fruit from trees of two years 

 old ; and not impossible that, by a peculiar mode of pruning, I might 

 obtain fruit from yearling trees, though the want of sunshine in our 

 climate did not permit me to entertain very sanguine hopes of success. 



Some peach stones, which were the produce of trees upon which I 

 had made experiments in the year 1811, with the hope of obtaining 

 early varieties of nectarines, were intended to have been placed in 

 pots in a hot-house, in the beginning of January 1812 ; and one of my 

 friends (I do not myself possess a hot-house) had offered me the use of 

 his house to accelerate the germination and growth of the seedling 

 plants. I, however, found the hot-house of my friend so much infested 

 with insects of various kinds that I did not choose to risk my plants in 

 it ; and the seeds in consequence were not subjected to the influence of 

 artificial heat till the middle of February, when I began to make fires in 

 my vinery. The plants appeared above the soil early in March ; and 

 they were kept under glass during the whole summer and autumn ; but 

 without any artificial heat being applied after the end of May. 



Conceiving that nature, in placing the age of puberty, in trees, so 

 distant from the period in which they spring from seed, has intended 

 chiefly to afford the plant, in this interval, the means of collecting a 

 considerable store of organisable matter, before the expenditure of its 

 sap commences in the production of blossoms and fruit, I adopted the 

 mode of pruning and culture which, consistently with my theoretical 

 opinions, appeared best calculated to promote that object. The leaves 

 being the organs on which alone I believe the true sap of the tree to be 

 generated, as many lateral shoots were suffered to remain upon each 

 plant, as could present their foliage to the light without injuriously 

 interfering with each other ; and these were shortened, whilst very 

 young, to the fourth or fifth leaf; and the buds in the axillse of these 

 leaves were destroyed as soon as they became visible ; so that whatever 

 portion of sap these leaves might generate, none might be uselessly 

 expended. I had previously proved that leaves, under these circum- 

 stances, will promote the growth of the stem between themselves and the 

 ground ; so that any degree of taperness may be given to the stem, 

 almost as accurately by the gardener, in proportioning the quantity and 

 position of the foliage, as it can be subsequently given to the lifeless wood 

 by the plane of the artificer ; and I calculated that the true sap, which 

 would be generated by the leaves upon the lower parts of the stem, and 

 lateral shoots, would be employed in feeding the roots ; whilst a portion 

 of that, which would be generated by the foliage near the summit of the 



