SEASON FOR PEUNINa 365 



merely removing superfluous foliage, the end attained is highly 

 useful : it is clear, however, that in order to arrive at this endi 

 without committing injury to the tree which is operated on, it 

 is indispensable that its exact mode of bearing fruit should be 

 in the first instance clearly ascertained. 



The period of ripeniaig fruit is sometimes changed by skilful 

 pruning, as in the case of the Easpberry, which may be made 

 to bear a second crop of fruit in the autumn, after the first crop 

 has been gathered. , In order to effect this, the strongest canes, 

 which ia the ordinary course of things would bear a quantity 

 of fruiting twigs, are cut down to within two or three eyes of 

 the base ; the laterals thus produced, being impelled into rapid 

 growth by an exuberance of sap, are unable to' form their fruit* 

 buds so early as those twigs in which excessive growth is not 

 thus produced, and consequently, while the latter fruit at one 

 season, the others cannot reach a bearing state tUl some weeks 

 later. Autumnal crops of summer Eoses, and of Strawberries, 

 have been sometimes procured by the destruction of the usual 

 crop at a very early period of the season ; the sap iutended tcf 

 nourish the flower-buds destroyed is, after their removal, 

 expended in forming new flower-buds, which make theii» 

 appearance at a later part of the year. 



The season for pruniag is usually midwinter, or at mid* 

 summer ; the latter for the purpose of removing new superfluous 

 branches, the former for thinning and arranging the several 

 parts of a tree. It is, however, the practice, occasionally, t6 

 perform what is called the winter pruning early in the autumn' 

 as in the case of the Gooseberry, and of the Vine when weak ' 

 and the efiect is found to be, that the shoots of such plants, in 

 the succeeding season, are stronger than they would have beeij 

 had the pruning been performed at a much later season. This 

 is necessarily so, as a little reflection will show. During the 

 season of rest (winter) a plant continues to absorb food solely 

 from the earth by its roots j and, if its branches are 

 unpruned, the sap thus and then introduced into, the system 

 will be distributed equally all through it; let us say from b to 

 c d&ni e in the accompanying diagram. If late pruning in 

 had recourse to, and the branches from a, to cd and e *r§ 



