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XLIX. Upon a mode of covering the naked branches of 

 Fruit Trees with New Wood. In a Letter to the Presi- 

 dent. By Samuel Spyvee Street, Esq. of Penryn, 

 Cornwall. 



Read December 2, 1828. 



Sir, 



Presuming that any experiment relative to the improve- 

 ment of Horticulture may be acceptable to the Society, I am 

 induced to send you the result of one which I tried this 

 Spring. 



It is a fact well known to Horticulturists, that the branches 

 of fruit trees trained against walls, and espaliers, after eight 

 or ten years become naked for about a foot or two nearest 

 the stem, which gives an unsightly appearance to the tree, 

 especially when the branches are trained horizontally ; and it 

 is in general difficult to procure blossom spurs, or even wood 

 shoots, in those situations, unless by training a new shoot from 

 the main stem, which cannot always be procured. The idea 

 struck me, that, if I interrupted the sap at a distance from 

 the main stem by ringing the branches, shoots might be 

 produced between the ring and the stem, and the result has 

 proved that my idea was correct. This spring, when the 

 blossom buds were about to burst, I made a ring to the 

 extent of one-fifth of an inch, in the usual way, at the 

 distance of two feet from the main stem, round a branch of a 

 Jargonelle Pear Tree, trained horizontally, which branch had 

 for several years been entirely bare both of fruit spurs and 

 wood shoots ; nor was there the smallest appearance of an 



