XIV INTRODUCTION. 



around which they are arranged has itself no tendency 

 to elongate under the influence of the usual stimulants. 

 Hence, a flower bud, or flower, is nothing but a con- 

 tracted branch ; as is proved by the occasional elong- 

 ation of the axis in flowers that expand during un- 

 usually hot damp weather late in the spring, becoming 

 branches, bearing sepals and petals instead of leaves. 

 It is, therefore, easily to be understood why, so long as 

 all the motions in the fluids and secretions of a tree go 

 on rapidly, with vigour, and without interruption, only 

 rudiments of branches (or leaf buds) should be formed ; 

 and why, on the other hand, when the former become 

 languid, and the parts are formed slowly, bodies of a 

 contracted nature, with no disposition to extension, (or 

 flower buds,) should appear. 



It will be found that the success of the practices above 

 enumerated, to which the gardener has recourse in 

 order to increase the fertility of his fruit trees, is to be 

 explained by what has just been said. In ringing fruit 

 trees, a cylinder of bark is cut from the branch, by 

 which means the return of the elaborated juices from 

 the leaves down the bark is cut off, and all that 

 would have been expended below the annular incision 

 is confined to the branch above it. This produces an 

 accumulation of proper juice ; and flower buds, or fertility, 

 are the result. But there is a defect in this practice, to 

 which want of success in many cases is no doubt to be 

 attributed. Although the returning fluid is found to 

 accumulate above the annular incision, yet the ascend- 

 ing sap flows along the alburnum into the buds with 

 nearly as much rapidity as ever, so that the accumula- 

 tion is but imperfectly produced. On this account the 

 second practice, of bending branches downwards, is found 

 to be attended with more certain consequences. The 

 effect of turning the branches of a tree from their natural 

 position to a pendulous or a horizontal one is, to im- 



