454* RemarJcs and Observations suggested 



The bark will not rise till growth has fairly commenced ; and 

 dull, cloudy, moist, warm weather suits best : if dry and sunny, 

 they should be shaded. The grafting of pines, in which a few 

 leaves are left on the top of the stock to draw up the sap, is 

 minutely described in the work. The same retention of leaves on 

 the top of the stock, to carry on the growth and draw up the 

 sap, is useful in the grafting of most soft evergreens, and has 

 lately been ingeniously applied to the grafting of vines, by Mr. 

 Gowans of Calder House. The rest of the section, on grafting 

 on dwarf stocks, which diminishes the quantity of sap, and ren- 

 ders the tree precocious ; its effects on the quality of the fruit, 

 &c. ; also on herbaceous or Tschudy grafting, grafting on the 

 root, &c., are interesting. 



On the section Pruning, the activity of the vital principle 

 should be taken into account, as well as the quantity of food 

 deposited. By taking away part of a branch, we take away so 

 much food that had been deposited for the use of the plant ; but 

 if, by this part being cut, we increase the activity of the vital 

 principle, we may ultimately produce more wood than would 

 have been done by letting it stand : hence, the common phrase 

 of pruning for wood and pruning for fruit is true upon this 

 principle. When plants are allowed to shoot up without check, 

 if healthy and vigorous, and sown in the place where they are to 

 grow, and the soil congenial, the activity of the vital principle, 

 perhaps, remains undiminished, and the plant continues to 

 thrive : but, if checked by transplanting, or want of nourish- 

 ment, or other cause, it gets what is called hidebound ; the 

 vital principle gets feeble, and, to stimulate it again into activity, 

 nothing is more effectual than cutting over, as is well known to 

 foresters, who universally resort to this practice to renovate the 

 growth of the oaks planted in the forest. After being a few 

 years planted, they head them down, select the strongest shoot 

 when they spring from the root, and, in a few^ years, the plants 

 thus managed are incomparably larger than those left untouched ; 

 stimulus is given to life by the young shoot made after cutting, 

 which continues afterwards, and produces a thriving healthy 

 tree, in place of a stunted slow-growing one. Peeling off the 

 old hardened outer bark from fruit trees also gives a stimulus, 

 by admitting the more perfect action of the light and heat ; but 

 it must make the tree more liable to checks. This cutting over 

 is also resorted to by nurserymen, to stimulate growth in crooked 

 layers, and all lazy-growing hide-bound plants, which are not 

 naturally so. Cutting the young wood back, and cutting in the 

 small roots to produce more fibres, keep the plant more healthy 

 and vigorous, and, from the bushiness of, the root, more fit to 

 transplant. In pruning fruit trees, if wood is wanted, the young 



I 



