

1852.] THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. 7 



r> action, hence the necessity of cutting a useless branch entirely out,^£) 

 p otherwise the cutting of one leads to the production of many other c 

 superfluous and useless ones. This is not a universal principle — 

 sometimes the first effect is to produce an accumulation of sap in a 

 certain branch, which is forced into the remaining buds and there 

 stored up against a future year. In ordinary cases it occurs that by 

 this means, short or bearing branches, or spurs are obtained in great 

 abundance. The cultivators of the Filbert (Corylus Avellana,) 

 procure by this practice a greater abundance of bearing wood, than 

 nature unassisted would furnish. For as the hazel nut or Filbert is 

 always borne on the wood of the previous year, it is desirable that 

 every bush should have as much as could be obtained of that wood 

 (to this consideration all others are sacrificed ;) and such is readily 

 obtained by observing a continued system of shortening the young 

 branches of two-thirds, the effect of which is to force all the lower 

 buds into growth the successive year and thus each shoot of bearing 

 wood produce many others. 



The effect produced upon one part by the abstraction of another 

 thus shown, is the development of buds, which would otherwise 

 have been dormant. This may be shown in many other ways ; thus 

 if all the fruit of a plant is taken off one year after its formation, the 

 fruit will be finer and more abundant the year following, which 

 naturally occurs when late frosts destroy our crops ; if of many 

 flowers only one is left, that one fed by the nourishment intended for 

 all the others becomes so much the finer. And also of two unequal 

 branches, the stronger is shortened and stopped in its growth, the 

 other becomes stronger ; and this is one of the most useful effects 

 connected with pruning ; because it enables a skilful cultivator to 

 equalize the growth of all parts of a tree and as has already been 

 stated is one of the most important consequences of the operation ; 

 for example, we may say that a seedling tree has a hundred buds to 

 support, and consequently the stem grows slowly and the plant is 

 stunted ; but being cut down so as to leave only two or three buds, 

 these push with great vigor and it becomes luxuriant. Nothing is 

 more strictly to be guarded against than the disposition that some 

 plants have to bleed, such as the vine and some climbers that are very 

 milky, &c. when pruned, to such an extent as to threaten them with 

 total exhaustion. It is also not unfrequent in fruit trees with gum- 

 my mucikginous secretions, such as the plum, the peach and other 

 stoned-fruits. This property arises from the large size of the ves- 

 sels, which vessels are unable, when cut through, to unite suffici- 

 ently to close their apertures, and so long as the roots continue to 

 to absorb their fluid contents from the soil so long will this emission 

 Intake place ; and if it is allowed to go on, the system of the plant 



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