PRUNING. 253 



have already compared it to the bulb of a seedling- 

 tulip. The senior division of the latter, from the 

 moment it assumes the form of a bulb is composed of 

 a certain number of leaves which, in the space of a 

 few years, are annually expanded, and the centrally 

 placed flower at last comes forth ; so the former is 

 first a leaf bud, and under favouring circumstances is 

 ultimately a flower bud. If in its first stage it receive 

 extraordinary excitement from the exuberant state of 

 the tree, and before its fructiferous principle has had 

 time to become mature, it is ejected forth as a summer 

 shoot with the incipient flower on its apex ; but if, 

 from its lateral position or other cause, it be arrested 

 in its place, and expand only a few leaves in the first 

 year, and a few more in the second, it is very probable 

 that a bud so developing itself will be a perfect flower 

 bud in the' third year. The result of the method of 

 pruning above adverted to, pretty clearly shows that 

 the foregoing description of the progress of a leaf-bud 

 to a flower-bud is sufficiently proved. 



The different methods of pruning trained trees, 

 adverted to above, are applicable to most of the 

 common sorts, the fig except ed. This fruit tree, in its 

 native climate, yields two crops every year, and upon 

 two sets of shoots. The first shoots are produced 

 in the spring, and ripen their fruit in the autumn. A 

 second birth of shoots comes forth about Midsummer 

 and perfects their fruit early in the following summer. 

 But in this climate, although the tree grows in the 

 same manner, yet the fruit on the spring shoots never 



