ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 151 



water with liquid manure ; if troubled with insects, dust 

 with quick lime and water with salt water. Above all 

 things be careful in drawing in the earth to keep it 

 out from the heart of the plaiit, and let it be done in dry 

 weather. 



PULLING OFF POTATO BLOSSOMS. 



THE Boston Cultivator^ speaking of this process, says : 

 " As the qualities of the potato-ball or apple differ con- 

 siderably from the root or tuber, it may be that the juices 

 destined to nourish tne balls will not, on removing the 

 blossoms, go to increase the roots. This view is not un- 

 reasonable." 



We do not suppose the theory to be, that the sap tend- 

 ing to the bloom and ball returns to the root. But, 

 simply, that there will be so much less food to be prepared, 

 and therefore so much less exhaustion to the vegetable 

 economy. It is well known that the filling out and ripen- 

 ing of seeds is eminently exhausting to the plant. It has 

 long been the custom of florists who wish show-flowers, to 

 refuse their bulbous plants leave to bloom for one season, 

 plucking off the bud, that they might be so much the 

 stronger for the next year's blooming. 



But we suppose the truth to be this. The sap is pre- 

 pared in the leaf and enters the distributing vessels of the 

 ]>l:int. It is conveyed to every organ ; each part, receiving 

 its portion, modifies it by a farther chemical action pecu- 

 liar to itself. Thus in the case of an apple-tree. The 

 elaborated sap which goes to the leaf, the alburnum, the 

 liber, the blossom, the fruit is the same in all ; but the fruit 

 gives it a still further elaboration, by which it imparts the 

 peculiar properties belonging to it, in distinction from the 



