153 
bearing wood is particularly wanted to fill up the lower part of 
the wall, in which case one or two shoots may be left. 
It will be satisfactory to the philosophic horticulturist to 
follow Mr. Williams through his experiments, from which he 
came to the preceding conclusions. He says, “ to prove whether 
or not my conjectures were correct, I made incisions through 
the bark on the trunks of several Vines growing in my garden, 
removing a circle of bark from each, and thus leaving the na- 
ked alburnum above an inch in width completely exposed; this 
was done in the months of June and July. The following 
autumn the fruit gl owing on these trees came to great perfection, 
having ripened from a fortnight to three weeks earlier than 
usual : but in the succeeding spring, the Vines did not shoot 
with their accustomed vigour, and I found that I had injured them 
by exposing the alburnum unnecessarily.” 
“ Last summer these experiments were repeated ; at the end of 
July, and beginning of August, I took annular excisions of bark 
from the trunks of several of my Vines, and that the exposed 
alburnum might be again covered with new bark by the end of 
autumn, the removed circles were made rather less than a quarter 
of an inch in width. T wo vines of the White Frontiniac, in simi- 
lar states of growth, being trained near to each other on a south 
wall, were selected for trial ; one of these was experimented 
on, (if I may use the term) the other was left in its natural state, 
to form a standard of comparison. When the circle of bark 
had been removed about a fortnight, the berries on the experi- 
mented tree, began evidently to swell faster than those on the 
other, and by the beginning of September showed indications 
of approaching ripeness, while the fruit of the unexperimented 
tree continued green and small. In fhe beginning of October 
the fruit on the tree, that had the bark removed from it, was quite 
ripe, the other only just began to show a disposition to ripen, 
for the bunches w ere shortly afterwards destroyed by the autum- 
nal frosts. In every case in which circles of bark were removed, 
I invariably found thatthe fruit notonly ripened earlier, but the 
berries were considerably larger than usual, and more highly 
flavoured. The effects thus produced, I can account for only, 
by adopting 3Ir Knight’s theory of the downw ard circulation of 
the sap, the truth of which these experiments, in my opinion, 
tend strongly to confirm. I therefore imagine by cutting 
177 iCCTAKIVM, 
