108 ADVANTAGES OF REMOVING DECAYING FLOWERS. 
twenty, or thirty years back, a general ignorance or neglect of the practices to 
which we allude prevailed, we are far from exempting the majority of culturists in 
the present age from the same short-sightedness and inattention. Indeed, it is a 
consciousness of this which induces us to take up such subjects in a formal manner. 
On a late occasion, we entered pretty largely into an enumeration of the benefits 
that may be realized from frequently stopping the shoots of growing exotics, and we 
hope another season will not be without its proofs that our remarks have taken 
effect. The practice to which we now have to direct the notice of our readers is one 
which has quite as strong recommendations, is as little thought of, and may be 
applied still more universally. 
Anxious to lay a proper basis on scientific principles for every system we 
advocate, we shall first show how the removal of withering blossoms can affect plants 
beneficially. Every vegetable being is, it may be assumed, adapted for performing 
certain general and specific offices, in, by, and for itself. Its roots supply it with 
nutriment ; its leaves increase that supply, and also elaborate it ; while both 
together serve to develop fresh branches, additional foliage, and likewise flowers 
and fruit. Where the roots are numerous and healthy, and the stems and branches 
free from disease or impediment, the sustenance derived from the former will always 
produce effects proportionate to its quality and amount. Hence, there will either 
be an unusual expansion of shoots and leaves alone, or a moderate production of 
these, with an extraordinary preparation for future fertility ; or, again, the branches 
and foliage will bear the ordinary proportion to flowers and fruit ; or, still further, 
the last will greatly preponderate, and the former be deficient. 
These cases will sufficiently prove that if the quantity of nourishment derived 
from the earth or elsewhere be expended in one direction, the other channels through 
which it might flow must be left destitute ; in other words, that when there is a 
superfluity of branches and foliage, inflorescence and fruit will be scanty, and the 
converse ; or, to come nearer to the subject of our remarks, that which is devoted 
to a particular purpose in one season is necessarily looked for in vain in the 
ensuing year. 
Here, then, we arrive at the point which has the nearest connexion with our 
present essay ; viz., the influence which the products of one year exert on those of 
the succeeding season. We have yet only noted the balance preserved by the 
different kinds of developments at the same period. There is, nevertheless, a great 
similarity in the two instances ; for a summer unprolific in flowers and fruits, is 
commonly followed by one equally fertile in both ; so that the harmony referred to 
is quite as happily maintained. 
In the cultivation of fruit trees, it is generally found that a season of abundance 
brings in its train one of comparative dearth ; exhausted Nature requiring some 
such period of rest to recruit her overtasked functions. It is to be observed, how- 
ever, that the production and maturation of fruit or seed has an enfeebling effect on 
plants altogether additional to that caused by the development of flowers ; and that 
