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XCIII. Observations on the proper Management o/Truit Trees, 

 which are intended to be forced very earlij in the ensuing 

 Season. By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. 

 $c President. 



Read June 3, 1817. 



Th e period which any species, or variety, of fruit will re- 

 quire to attain maturity, under any given degrees of tempe- 

 ratures, and exposure to the influence of light in the forcing 

 house will be regulated to a much greater extent, than is 

 generally imagined, by the previous management and con- 

 sequent state of the tree, when that is first subjected to the 

 operation of artificial heat. Every gardener knows, that when 

 the previous season has been cold and cloudy and wet, the 

 wood of his fruit trees remains immature, and weak abor- 

 tive blossoms only are produced. The advantages of having 

 the wood well ripened are perfectly well understood ; but 

 those which may be obtained, whenever a very early crop 

 of fruit is required, by ripening the wood very early in the 

 preceding summer, and putting the tree into a state of 

 repose, as soon as possible after its wood has become per- 

 fectly mature, do not, as far as my observation has extended, 

 appear to be at all known to gardeners ; though every one 

 who has had in any degree the management of Vines in a 

 hot-house, must have observed the different effects of the same 

 degrees of temperature upon the same plant, in October and 

 February. In the autumn, the plants have just sunk into 

 their winter sleep : in February they are refreshed, and 

 ready to awake again ; and whenever it is intended prema- 



