162 On Ringing the Stems or Branches of Fruit Trees. 



advantage upon the Cherry tree, and some other fruit 

 trees, to which it has hitherto been found destructive. I have 

 tried, with the most ample success, in the present spring, 

 the application of such a bandage upon a ringed branch of 

 a Fig tree ; and the evidence I have obtained of its mode 

 of operation has not been confined to a recent period, for 

 I applied such a bandage in the first experiment I ever 

 made upon a plant, and at the distance (I have particular 

 reasons for knowing) of precisely half a century from the 

 present time ; when I was a school boy of ten years old. 



I am not friendly to the process of ringing, in whatever 

 manner it may be performed ; and I think it never should 

 be adopted, unless in cases where blossoms cannot be other- 

 wise obtained, or where, in very early forcing, the value of 

 a single crop of fruit exceeds the value of the tree. For it 

 is a process which promotes the expenditure, whilst it dimi- 

 nishes the creation, of the vital fluid of the tree, which must 

 also suffer in all subsequent periods, from the organic injuries 

 it sustains. 



