The Buds. 89 
If the soil is properly drained, the natural depletion of 
soil water about midsummer will usually give the needed 
check to growth. In wet seasons, the drying of the soil may 
be promoted by stopping cultivation before midsummer and 
sowing a crop that will increase evaporation from the soil, 
as oats, clover or buckwheat. 
137. In certain cases, as with seedling trees, of which 
we would early know the quality of the fruit, we may give 
an abnormal check to growth by pinching the tips of the 
young shoots or by root pruning (416). These operations 
should be performed early in summer, before the period of 
flower-bud formation, and if the tree is not too young, flowers 
and fruit may be expected the following season. Frequent 
transplanting of young trees acts like root pruning, especi- 
ally if the tap-root is severed. Such harsh measures, how- 
ever, while they promote early fruiting, doubtless tend to 
shorten the life of trees. 
138. Ringing (416) often Causes the Formation of 
Flower-Buds in otherwise barren trees, by obstructing the 
rootward current of assimilated food. Twisting a small wire 
about the branch, violently twisting the branch itself, or 
simply bending it to an unnatural position, and fastening it 
there, answers the same purpose. But these devices prob- 
ably weaken the tree and shorten its life by robbing the 
roots of their normal food supply and are excusable only 
in special cases, as with seedling trees. It is generally a 
reproach to the care of the cultivator, if his trees of bearing 
age cannot form flower-buds without such choking. 
Fruit trees grafted on slightly uncongenial stocks some- 
times flower and fruit more freely for a time than when 
growing on their own roots, because the union of cion and 
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