TIME TO MANURE FOE PKUIT. £77 



enough to injure or destroy it. Hence it is obvious that liquid manure 

 must be wiljhheld from plants grown for their wood and leaves, at the 

 latest, by the time when two-thirds of the season shall have elapsed. 

 To administer it in such cases towards the end of the year would be to 

 produce upon it an effect similar to that caused by a warm wet autumn, 

 when even hardy trees are damaged by the earliest frost. 



In the case of flowers it is to be remembered that the more leaves a 

 plant forms the fewer blossoms in that season ; although, perhaps the 

 more in a succeeding season, provided exuberance is then arrested. 

 The application of liquid manure is therefore unfavourable to the 

 immediate production of flowers. It is further to be remarked, that 

 even although flowers shaU have arrived at a rudimentary state at a 

 time when this fluid is applied, and that therefore their number cannot 

 be diminished, yet that the effect of exuberance is notoriously to cause 

 deformity ; petals become distorted, the coloured parts become green, 

 and leaves take the place of the floral organs, as we so often see with 

 Eoses grown, with strong rank manure. In improving the quality of 

 flowers liquid manure is therefore a dangerous ingredient ; nevertheless 

 its action is most importajit, if it is rightly given. The true period of 

 applying it, with a view to heighten the beauty of flowers, is undoubt- 

 edly when their buds are large enough to show that the elementary 

 organisation is completed, and therefore beyond the reach of derange- 

 ment. If the floral apparatus has once taken upon itself the natural 

 condition, no exuberance will afterwards affect it ; the parts which are 

 small will simply grow larger, and acquire brighter colours ; for those 

 changes in flowers which cause monstrous development, appear to take 

 effect only when the organs are in a nascent state — at the very moment 

 of their birth. Hence it is clear, that in order to affect flowers advan- 

 tageously by liquid' manure, it should be given to plants at the time 

 when the flower-bud is formed and just about to swell more rapidly. 



With fruit it is otherwise ; the period of application should there be 

 when the fruit, not the flowers, is beginning to sweU. Nothing is 

 gained by influencing the size or colour of the flower of a fruit-tree ; 

 what we want is to increase the size or the abundance of the fruit. If 

 liquid manure is applied to a plant when the flowers are growing, the 

 vigour which it communicates to them must also be commxmicated to 

 the leaves ; but when leaves are growing unusually fast, there is some- 

 times a danger that they may rob the branches of the sap required for 

 the nutrition of the fruit ; and if thg,t. happens, the latter falls off. 

 Here, then, is a source of danger which must not be lost sight of. Wo 

 doubt, the proper time for using liquid manure is when the fruit is 

 beginning to swell, and has acquired, by means of its own green 

 surface, a power of suction capable of opposing that of the leaves.. At 

 that time, liquid manure may be applied freely, and continued, from 



