On Improving the Productiveness of Fruit Trees. 263 



every tree fertile. This, however, is a problem, which has 

 hitherto not been solved, though we may perhaps ac- 

 knowledge, that some steps have been made towards it. 

 It may be, that the Society, on looking at the translation 

 alluded to, will think the attempt of Mr. Hempel, who is 

 the writer of the tract, to be of this description, that is to 

 say, to have contributed towards the solution. The manner 

 of proceeding, which has been recommended by different 

 persons, is various ; all agreeing in this point, that the flow 

 of sap ought to be checked. Old Henry Van Oosten, 

 the Leyden gardener, whose book appeared, translated 

 from the Dutch into English, in the year 1711, in a second 

 edition, mentions several means to be resorted to. One 

 is, to transplant the tree frequently. Another, to bore a 

 hole in it, and drive in an oaken plug, which, he says, is 

 the old way. But as the most effectual he considers the 

 repeated pruning of the tree, in summer, by which, as it 

 causes the tree to bleed, the current of the sap is naturally 

 weakened. Pruning would otherwise be deemed to add to 

 the strength of the tree, if it were done, before the sap is in 

 motion ; but in practising it from the month of April, when 

 already much of the sap has been wasted, you tame, as he 

 says, the luxuriance of the tree by the wounds you inflict 

 upon it. He rests upon the idea, that a superfluity of sap 

 produces nothing but twigs, and moderate sap produces 

 fruit. Some of the modern gardeners are afraid of pruning 

 a luxuriant tree ; but while they entertain these fears, they 

 are thinking of winter pruning, or early spring pruning. 

 Marshall, in speaking of Pear-trees, (page 156, 4th edit, 

 of the Introduction to Gardening,) observes, that their 

 vol. ii. N n 



