204 Amelioraiion of our edible Fruits. 



vertical shoots ; and in the winter pruning I displace all 

 the buds, even the topmost ones, of such shoots, after which 

 they will die off by degrees. If your trees are not very lux- 

 uriant indeed, one year of this treatment will reduce them to 

 moderation ; otherwise you must continue it. From a long train 

 of experiments and observations, which it would be of little interest 

 to notice further, I have lately taken up certain ideas relative to 

 the amelioration of our edible fruits with more certainty than 

 has hitherto been done. The principle on which I would pro- 

 ceed is in strict accordance with that laid down by the best 

 writers on the subject; yet my application of it would indicate 

 the very reverse. It is well known that the seed is nourished, in 

 a great measure, by the constituent parts of what we call the 

 fruit ; and it is equally well knovv^n how essential it is to con- 

 centrate the saccharine secretions of a tree in its seed, when it 

 is intended to obtain a new or improved variety from that seed. 

 After dusting the stigma of the variety from which the future 

 fruit is intended to originate with the pollen of the desired male 

 parent, advantage is taken of every possible stimulant to pro- 

 duce the largest and most perfectly formed fruit which the given 

 variety is capable of producing ; inferring that the fruit, in the 

 same degree, is capable of conveying the peculiar secretions 

 of the tree to its seed. The inference is entitled to all the at- 

 tention which has been paid to it ; and, in dissenting from this 

 inference without proof of how far my own ideas may be found 

 to supersede or corroborate it, I merely beg the attention of 

 the amateur who has leisure and patience to prosecute the sub- 

 ject ; circumstances over which I had no control having prevented 

 myself from following it up for the present. 



The circulation of the juices of plants, and the office of leaves, 

 are now known to every one. As soon as the circulation begins 

 actively in the spring, the roots take up a fresh supply of sap ; 

 which, in its ascent to the leaves, mixes with the juices already 

 in the body of the tree; and, according as the supply of this 

 solution is greater or less, so is the corresponding size of the 

 fruit ; from which we may safely infer that the fruit is chiefly 

 nourished by the solution, though it may be capable of rejecting 

 or throwing off any matter foreign to its own nature. Now, if, 

 instead of supplying this abundance of sap by means of stimu- 

 lants, you prevent its accumulation, and force the fruit, as it 

 were, to subsist on the already elaborated juices stored up in the 

 body of the tree, you will insure the peculiar secretion of the tree 

 in an unadulterated state, for the nourishment of the fruit and 

 seed. On this rests my idea of improving our fruits ; and I 

 recommend the following method to attain the end in view : — 



Take a healthy vigorous tree, trained against a south wall : if 

 it has borne no fruit for the last season or two, so much the 



