Appendix.] Fruit Trees to bear, §c. 3 



3. This method may probably serve to increase considerably 

 the quantity of fruit in the country. 



The branches so operated upon are hung mil of fruit, while the 

 others, that are not ringed, often have nothing, or very little, on 

 them. This effect is easy to be explained from the theory of the 

 motion of the sap ; for when the sap moves slowly in a tree, it pro- 

 duces fruit buds, which is the case in old trees : when it moves 

 vigorously, the tree forms wood, or runs into shoots, as happens 

 with young trees. 



Though I arrived at this discovery, myself, in consequence of 

 trying the same process with a different view, namely, to increase 

 only the size of the fruit, but not to force barren branches, that 

 were only furnished with leaf-buds, to bear, this latter application 

 being before quite unknown to me : I will, on that account, by no 

 means give myself out for the first inventor of this operation: but 

 I was ignorant of the effects to be produced by this method, and 

 only discovered them by repeated experiments of my own, which 

 I made for the promotion of Pomology. Frequent experience of the 

 completest success has confirmed the truth of my observations. 

 Nor do I think, that this method is generally known ; at least to all 

 those, to whom I showed the experiment, the effect produced ap- 

 peared new and surprising. At all events, that method, supposing 

 it even to be an invention of older date, has, as far as I know, not 

 yet been fully described by any one, and published in print. 



