By Dr. Noehden. 



:;n;> 



fruitfulness. It is, therefore, fair to conclude, that whatever 

 controls the motion of the sap, is beneficial to the production 

 of fruit. Whether the actual diminution of the sap is the 

 right plan to be pursued, may perhaps be .doubted. An 

 eminent Horticulturist calls the sap vegetable blood, and 

 justly considers it as that, upon which the life and health of 

 the plant depend : but whether we are to infer that, because 

 this vegetable blood is so important and essential, it should 

 be increased to the utmost, and that its function would 

 be best performed in proportion to its comparative quan- 

 tity, may well be questioned. It is probably in vegetable, 

 as it is in animal nature, that there is a certain limit, beyond 

 which all excess is faulty. There may be too much blood 

 made in a plant, as we know that there may in an animal, 

 the superabundance, in each case, being created by im- 

 proper nourishment ; and in both it may be expedient, and 

 perfectly consistent with good judgment, to lessen it. The 

 chief point, however, seems to be, to regulate the course of 

 the sap, and to check it, when it is too rapid, which it may 

 be concluded to be, when the tree is vigorous and luxuriant, 

 and yet barren. M. Noisette, a very intelligent nurseryman 

 at Paris, and one of the editors of the Bon Jardinier, in 

 speaking of the proceeding, which in such circumstances 

 should be adopted, calls it " to curb, or subdue, the force 

 of vegetation" (dompter la force de la vegetation au profit des 

 fruits ) ;* and M. Thouin in another passage, where he 

 treats of a certain mode of pruning, expresses himself thus+: 



* See Bon Jardinier for the year 1817,- p. 305. 



f Description de l'Ecole d' Agriculture du Museum, p. 59, 



