ON THE MANAGEMENT OF FRUIT-TREES INTENDED FOR FORCING. 229 



but those which may be obtained, whenever a very early crop of fruit is 

 required, by ripening the wood very early in the preceding summer, and 

 putting the tree into a state of repose, as soon as possible after its wood 

 has become perfectly mature, do not, as far as my observation has 

 extended, appear to be at all known to gardeners ; though every one 

 who has had in any degree the management of vines in a hot-house, 

 must have observed the different effects of the same degrees of tem- 

 perature upon the same plant, in October and February. In the 

 autumn, the plants have just sunk into their winter sleep : in February 

 they are refreshed, and ready to awake again ; whenever it is intended 

 prematurely to excite their powers of life into action, the expediency 

 of putting these powers into a state of rest, early in the preceding 

 autumn, appears obvious. The natural propensity of the gardener to 

 treat his plants as in some degree sentient beings, and as he would 

 wish to be himself treated, which sometimes misleads him (as I have 

 remarked in a former paper)*, will in this case direct him rightly, 

 by leading him to infer, that early rising requires early going to rest. 

 I shall therefore state the result of a few experiments only, which will,, 

 I believe, afford satisfactory evidence of the truth of the foregoing 

 positions. 



Some vines, which grew in pots, were placed in a forcing-house, at the 

 end of January, where they produced ripe fruit about the middle of 

 July ; and soon after that period, the pots were taken from the house 

 and put under the shade of a north wall, in the open air. Water was 

 subsequently given in small quantities only ; and the leaves of the plants 

 soon fell off. In August the plants were pruned ; and in September 

 they were removed to a south wall, where they soon vegetated with much 

 vigour, and continued to grow till their young shoots were killed by 

 frost. 



Other vines, of the same varieties, were suffered to remain in the 

 forcing-house till late in August ; where they were subjected to the mode 

 of management above described, except that they were not removed 

 from their situation under a north wall, nor pruned, before the approach 

 of winter. These were then placed against a south wall, where their 

 fruit ripened well in the following season, in a climate not nearly warm 

 enough to have ripened it at all, if the plants had previously grown in 

 the open air. 



Having raised many varieties of the peach from seed in the year 1813, 

 I felt anxious to secure the existence of each variety till I could ascertain 



* See page 213. 



