THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
183 
flower most vigorously for six or seven summers, with many blossoms 
nearly five inches broad. But I have flowered plants very well for 
two or three years on rich, dry, sandy ground ; on such, however, they 
soon cease to flower freely and become worthless. I am satisfied that 
the age and condition of the plant is of more importance that the 
quality of the ground. The nurseries here comprehend soil of almost 
every sort, common, and of very opposite qualities, and I have never 
failed in flowering youug plants well for a few years on spots appa- 
rently very unsuitable. 
When seedling plants have grown one summer, I remove the 
strongest of them, and transplant them into beds, or lines about a 
foot apart. Plants of equal strength commonly flower at the same 
time, and appear last ; any time between September and April 
admits of their removal, but if the plants are strong enough to 
flower the first summer, they should be removed before the month 
of March. Those that remain in the seed-bed are fit for being 
transplanted after the second summer’s growth, when they are 
classed into sizes in being removed. Such as are thinned out and left 
at distances for flowering in the seed beds, are very seldom found to 
be so vigorous as those that are early removed. After the plants 
are three years old, they do not admit of being transplanted with 
much success. I have known old plants which, after being removed, 
would produce abundance of foliage, but not one flower in ten 
years. Such is the propensity of this beautiful plant. When culti- 
vated as greenhouse plants, they should be inserted, when one year 
old, into six or seven-inch pots, and kept very moist during the pro- 
gress ot the flower-stalk, which commonly begins and ends its height 
in the month of April. The best specimens, however, are generally 
from the open ground. 
DISBUDDING BRUIT TREES. 
disbudding fruit trees it should be borne in mind that 
every cut with the knife, and every pinch of the finger 
and thumb, technically termed “ stopping,” exercises, 
for a time at least, a corresponding amount of restric- 
tion on the root. Indeed, it would be no difficult 
matter to convert a young forest tree into a mere bush by com- 
mencing and rigidly pursuing such a course for the first seven years 
of its life. One of the first points to appreciate, with regard more 
especially to trained trees, trhether by the fan mode or horizon- 
tally, is the continual tendency of the main leaders of such trees to 
establish a new leader in the most perpendicular direction, or where 
the most spacious sap vessels exist. This is of course a mere con- 
sequence of an immutable law of nature, which in the main impels 
the shoots of trees upwards. Now it is perfectly obvious that when 
the main flow of sap obtains a new channel of this description, 
that such must be at the expense of the buds ; and more especially 
the fruit situated near the terminal points of the horizontal or fan 
branches. The winter Nelis Pear, and the Passe Colmar, are pretty 
June. 
