ON RINGING THE STEMS OR BRANCHES OF FRUIT-TREES. 247 



When the branch is small, or the space from which the bark has been 

 taken off is considerable, it almost always operates in excess ; a morbid 

 state of early maturity is induced, and the fruit is worthless. 



If this view of the effects of partial decortication, or ringing, be a just 

 one, it follows that much of the success of the operation must be 

 dependent upon the selection of proper seasons, and upon the mode of 

 performing it being well adapted to the object of the operator. If that 

 be the production of blossoms, or the means of making the blossoms set 

 more freely, the ring of bark should be taken off early in the summer, 

 preceding the period at which blossoms are required ; but if the enlarge- 

 ment and more early maturity of the fruit be the object, the operation 

 should be delayed till the bark will readily part from the alburnum in 

 the spring. The breadth of the decorticated space, as Mr. Sabine has 

 justly observed, must be adapted to the size of the branch * ; but I have 

 never witnessed any except injurious effects whenever the experiment 

 has been made upon very small or very young branches ; for such become 

 debilitated and sickly long before the fruit can acquire a proper state of 

 maturity. I have found a tight ligature, applied in the preceding 

 summer, in such cases, to answer, in a great measure, all the purposes of 

 ringing, with far less injurious consequences to the tree ; and if such were 

 applied to the stems or principal branches of cherry-trees which are to 

 be forced very early in the following year, I believe the blossoms would 

 be found to set more freely, and the fruit to attain an early maturity. I 

 have also succeeded in preserving, to a great extent, the health of a 

 ringed branch by instantly covering the exposed surface of the alburnum 

 with a tight bandage of coarse thread coated with bees- wax, if the branch 

 were small ; or of fine packthread, if it were large ; so as wholly to fill 

 the space from which the bark had been taken. By such means the 

 desiccation and consequent death of the external surface of the alburnum 

 have been prevented ; and I consequently think it not improbable that 

 the operation might be performed with advantage upon the cherry-tree, 

 and some other fruit-trees, to which it has hitherto been found destruc- 

 tive. I have tried, with the most ample success, in the present spring, 

 the application of such a bandage upon a ringed branch of a fig-tree ; 

 and the evidence I have obtained of its mode of operation has not been 

 confined to a recent period, for I applied such a bandage in the first 

 experiment I ever made upon a plant, and at the distance (I have 

 particular reasons for knowing) of precisely half a century from the 

 present time ; when I was a school-boy of ten years old. 



* See Horticultural Transactions, Volume IV. page 124. 



