Preparations for watering Peach Trees, ^c. 319 



fluid. I call it an excitei', a stimulant, and nothing more; 

 though it would not, I conceive, be difficult to place Mr. 

 Main, or any other reader, in the dilemma of either being- 

 forced to admit that the exciting agents must be the vital 

 principle of the plant itself; or, that that plant is, hondjide, 

 an organised being, endowed with sensitive life to a greater or 

 less extent. This is a question which I leave to the specu- 

 lations and enquiries of the philosophical mind, only venturing 

 to hope that some — many — of your readers may be in- 

 duced to reflect seriously, and to propose doubts or queries 

 which may serve as stimuli to others whose powers of mind 

 may require to be roused into activity. By thus whetting and 

 sharpening the edge of the mental faculty, sparks of the light 

 of truth may perhaps be elicited, and errors detected. 



To return to the point under consideration, and thus con- 

 clude this hurried notice : I wish it to be clearly understood, 

 that I conceived when I wrote the passage, and now believe, 

 that when a young lateral shoot, say from the horizontally 

 trained branch of an espalier pear or apple tree, is cut back, 

 about the end of the month of June, to two eyes or buds, or 

 the embryoes of either, those electrical or ethereal currents 

 which had previously acted upon the terminal and higher buds, 

 stimulating the advancing or growing principle, have now no 

 other media to act upon than the ^qv^ remaining buds or 

 embryoes (preorganised, and existing — not created, though 

 heretofore dormant), situated at the base of the shoot. These 

 they excite, perhaps, into growth and extension; but very 

 frequently into the developement of fruitful buds. How this 

 effect is produced may be secret to human research : at all 

 events, the enquiry is closely connected with that of the source, 

 origin, and progress of buds; and this is a branch of vegetable 

 science which, I trust, Vk'ill be shortly investigated by the 

 physiologists of the present day. I hope. Sir, that I have 

 at least cleared my meaning in respect to the passage al- 

 luded to, although I may have failed to elucidate the natural 

 agency to which it referred. 



April 22. 1832. G. I. T. 



Art. XIV. A Proposal to uaier Peach and Nectarine Trees iuith 

 Nitre, a Preparation from Blood, S^c. By Joseph Hayward, 

 Esq. 



Sir, 

 It is well known, that, although trees of the peach, apricot, 

 plum, apple, &c., are well furnished with blossom buds, the 



