286 ON THE CULTIVATION OF STRAWBERRIES. 



do not produce fruit till they are two years old. I entertain no doubt 

 but that he is correct, when the plants are raised in the open ground ; 

 but when I have employed, as I have always done, artificial heat early 

 in the spring, I have obtained abundant crops from yearling plants of 

 every species. 



LVIL UPON THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF PROTECTING THE STEMS 

 OF FRUIT-TREES FROM FROST IN EARLY SPRING. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, February lst> 1825.] 



THE blossoms of fruit trees fall off abortively in some seasons, and 

 produce much fruit in others, in which the weather, relatively to tempera- 

 ture and moisture, has been nearly the same during the flowering season 

 of such trees ; and it is in very favourable, or very unfavourable seasons 

 only, that the gardener can, with any degree of precision, pronounce what 

 portion of his blossoms will afford fruit. If a larger part of it than he has 

 been led to anticipate prove abortive, he generally attributes its falling off 

 to something which he calls a blight, and which he supposes to be the 

 operation of some unknown noxious quality in the atmosphere, during the 

 season in which his trees have been in blossom. 



Many circumstances have at different periods come under my observa- 

 tion, which have led me to draw a different conclusion, and to believe that 

 whenever a very large portion of the well organized blossom of fruit trees 

 falls off abortively, in a moderately favourable season, the cause of the 

 failure may generally be traced to some previous check which the motion 

 and operation of the vital fluid of the tree has sustained. 



It is well known that the bark of oak trees is usually stripped off in the 

 spring, and that in the same season the bark of other trees may be easily 

 detached from their alburnum, or sap-wood, from which it is at that 

 season separated by the intervention of a mixed cellular and mucilaginous 

 substance ; this is apparently employed in the organization of a new layer 

 of fibre, or inner bark, the annual formation of which is essential to the 

 growth of the tree. If, at this period, a severe frosty night, or very cold 

 winds occur, the bark of the trunk or main stem of the oak tree becomes 

 again firmly attached to its alburnum, from which it cannot be separated 

 till the return of milder weather. Neither the health of the tree, nor its 

 foliage, nor its blossoms, appear to sustain any material injury by this 

 sudden suspension of its functions ; but the crop of acorns invariably 



