366 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER.' 



[Mar, 



has been recommended. Partial decortication was recom- 

 mended by Arnaud d'Andilly in 1650, and of late years has 

 been practised by many on standard fruit-trees. Stripping oft 

 pieces of the bark was recommended by Marshall. Ringing 

 the stem and branches was known to the Romans, and is men- 

 tioned by Virgil, Columella, &c. Duhamel revived this prac- 

 tice amongst the moderns, and since his time, it has been prac- 

 tised in Holland and Germany. A. Hempel, a Saxon, so late 

 as 1815, published an account of this practice, of which he 

 claims to be the inventor. The use of ringing was, in all pro- 

 bability, introduced into England soon after Duhamel's ex- 

 periments were published. Dr. Darwin, in his notes to Phy- 

 tologia, describes the practice and accounts for its effects. It 

 was brought to the notice of the Horticultural Society by a 

 paper of the late Dr. Nohden, and was then considered a new 

 principle. It is nov/ frequently practised, both for the pur- 

 pose of inducing blossoms on trees, or rendering them pro- 

 ductive, and for accelerating the maturity and increasing the 

 size of the fruit. The former has been termed production- 

 ringing, and the latter maturation-ringing. The former 

 should be performed in the spring, and will produce its effects 

 the following year ; the latter mode should be performed when 

 the plants are in blossom, and will show its effects the same 

 season. Bending down the branches has been recommended 

 to produce fruitfulness, by fixing balls of clay to the extremi- 

 ties of the shoots of young apple-trees about midsummer, 

 which, by depressing them, is supposed to stagnate the sap and 

 induce the production of flower-buds. The latter mode is 

 the least objectionable, as it cannot have much effect on the 

 health of the tree. The others are all founded on the same 

 principle, namely, depriving the tree of health. This appears 

 to be the conclusion drawn by Mr. Sabine upon the merits of 

 ringing. " There is," he says, a pear-tree against one of 

 the walls in the kitchen-garden belonging to his Majesty at 

 Kew, which underwent the operation of ringing about fifteen 

 years ago. The part operated on was near the root, and as 

 it was a principal arm, about one-half of the whole tree be- 

 came influenced by the operation. This half has uniformly 

 borne fruit, the other half has been ncarl\- barren. The poi-. 



