266 AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 



duces excessive vigor, is attended with the formation of 

 leaf buds ; whereas, all those conditions and circumstances 

 that check the vigorous growth by extension, provided 

 they do not too greatly impair the vitality of the plant, 

 will conduce to the formation of flower-buds. 



Some of these conditions consist in starving the tree, 

 or by planting it in a sterile soil, that has deficient 

 moistui e ; by severely crowding the roots, or by cutting 

 them, as in root pruning ; in grafting a portion of the 

 young plant upon an old or an uncongenial stock, or one 

 that is naturally dwarfish ; in ringing the bark ; in frequent 

 transplanting, or in continued summer pinching ; in short, 

 almost any circumstances which appear to threaten the 

 life of the tree, seem to excite within it an effort for the 

 preservation and perpetuation of the species, by changing 

 the bud plants, attached to the parent, into seed plants, 

 that may and will be separated from it to reach the soil 

 eventually, and there to establish an independent existence. 



As the tree advances in growth, and approaches toward 

 its natural period of maturity, it is supposed that there is 

 an accumulation of nutritive matter within it, and at the 

 same time the roots will have exhausted the soil, to some 

 extent, of the elements that contributed to the production 

 of wood-growth, and the result is the formation of flowr 

 er-buds. N"ow it becomes a nice matter to preserve the 

 proper balance between these two systems of growtli, the 

 wood producing and the fruit forming. Two opposite 

 systems of production have become established in the 

 tree, the one infertile, the other producing the desired 

 fruits; _the one preserving the health and vigor of the 

 tree, the other tending to preserve the species at the same 



