252 PRUNING. 



been proved by an eminent horticulturist * that the 

 summer shoots may be so managed as to be formed 

 into fruit-bearing- spurs all over the tree. This system 

 of pruning is chiefly applicable to the more choice 

 sorts of trained apple and pear trees ; and is de- 

 tailed at great length in the Gardener's Magazine, 

 vol. iii. p. 1, and in a treatise on the subject by the 

 same experienced practitioner. The principle is, by 

 stopping and shortening at different* times a selected 

 number of the summer shoots, the buds at their bases 

 are prompted to become flower buds on every part of 

 the tree. 



Here we may again observe that the idea of a bud 

 of a pear or apple tree requiring two or more years to 

 raise it from the state of a leaf bud, to that of a 

 flower bud, appears to be reasonable in the case to 

 which we have just alluded. That there are excep- 

 tions to this as an invariable rule, has already been 

 shown ; but here it holds good in respect of those 

 buds left at the base of the shortened shoots which, in 

 a longer or shorter time, become fertile. 



It has been presumed in our view of the structure 

 of apple and pear trees in particular, that every bud 

 contains an embryo flower on the summit of its axis, 

 and that it only requires a certain exposure to full air 

 and light, and a certain stationary repose, to mature 

 its reproductive organisation. To illustrate this 

 process of the development of a bud of a tree we 



* Mr. Charles Harrison. 



