VI.] 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



183 



nearly thirty-eight dozen. It is not to be supposed^ howe^ er, that 

 the fruit would be distributed equally over every part of the tree ; 

 but, suppose you have half the number, what prodigious quantities 

 must come from either of the end walls of the garden ! There is 

 no greater error than that of permitting trees to bear too great a 

 quantity of fruit. Generally speaking, you have the same weight 

 in half the number that you have in the whole number, if too 

 numerously left : then, you prevent the tree from bearing the next 

 year : for it has not strength to provide for blossoms, while it is 

 strained to its utmost in the bearing of fruit. This being a mat- 

 ter of so much importance, and applicable to all sorts of fruit- 

 trees, I beg the reader to observe how fully this opinion is sup- 

 ported by the two instances which I am about to cite. Under 

 the head Cucumber, I have observed (and the fact is notorious to 

 all gardeners), that if you leave one fruit to stand for seed, the 

 plant instantly ceases to bear : it is the same with kidney-beans. 



Gather cucumbers and have cucumbers, gather kidney-beans 

 and have kidney-beans," are maxims as old as the hills. These 

 are annual plants ; and, therefore, the consequences of causing 

 them to make the grand exertion of ripening their fruit are appa- 

 rent the same year. As to fruit-trees, it is notorious that, in this 

 country, orchard trees seldom bear great crops two years running ; 

 but here the matter is irregular, owing to the Mights, and, there- 

 fore, the effect of over-bearing is a fact not so well established as 

 it is in America where there are no blights. In that country, the 

 thing is so well known that nothing is more common than for a 

 man, going into one part of the country from another, to ask whe- 

 ther that is the bearing year in that neighbourhood ; and it never 

 yet was known that two bearing years succeeded each other with 

 regard to the same tree. Some sorts of apples (and the Fall Pip- 

 pin is one of them) bear upon some limbs of the tree one year, 

 and upon other limbs of the tree another year ; and you will fre- 

 quently see a limb or two loaded with fruit while not an apple is 

 to be seen on any other part of the tree. This doctrine, therefore, 

 I take to be firmly established. With regard to apples and fruit 

 of about the same value, the consequence is not very great ; but, 

 in the case of wall-fruit, you want a crop every year ; and, there- 

 fore, you must take away one year that which would prevent 

 bearing the next. Cherries may, perhaps, be an exception here ; 

 because they take care to make the superabundant fruit diop off 



