44 
AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Tlie flower-buds of tbe grape, blackberry and raspberry originate the same 
year the fruit is borne and from lateral buds. That is, all fruit buds are 
borne on wood of the present season’s growth and unless growth takes place 
no fruit can be expected. 
Tlie Quince — Produces its fruit on terminals of the present season’s growth, 
and when the flowers appear the growth of the shoot is at an end. 
Later in the season leaf-buds appear which give rise to new shoots the fol- 
lowing year. 
The observations made show beyond doubt that leaf-buds change to flower- 
buds and that flowmr-buds may change to leaf-buds during almost any period 
of the growing season. 
Florists hasten or increase the blooming of plants by limiting the root 
development. The fruit grower may do the same by roof pruning, and it has 
been repeatedly shown that trees which have been making vigorous growth 
and developing few fruit-buds may be forced into greater productiveness by 
this process. 
The formation of flower-buds appears to depend upon a somewhat rapid 
development of food material with a lessened growth or multiplication of new 
cells. 
Summer pruning, drouth, the cutting- or removal of the bark, the bending 
of a branch, these and other agencies tend to produce this result. 
It is only by observation and careful experiment that the fruit culturist can 
tell which operation can be practiced with the most satisfaction and profit. 
The Society was then addressed by Professor J. C. Whitten of the Univer- 
sity of Missouri: 
THE RELATION OF COLOR TO THE GROWTH OF FRUIT BUDS 
OF THE PEACH ON SUNNY DAYS IN WINTER. 
BY PROF. J. C. WHITTEN, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, COLUMBIA, MO. 
The relation of color to the growth of plants has been given some atten- 
tion by students of vegetable physiology. It has been observed that many 
species of plants take on a reddish or purplish tinge upon the approach of 
cold weather, and that their purple coloring matter becomes- more and more 
abundant as the cold becomes greater. The fact has been recorded by Kerner 
that many species of Alpine plants are green when grown at a low altitude, 
but that the same species become much darker colored when grown at a 
higher altitude, where they receive less warmth. It has further been shown 
that if some of these green colored plants are removed to a higher and colder 
locality, they have the power of quickly taking on the dark purple color cus- 
tomary to tlie species in cold places; and that, conversely, if the purple spec- 
imens are removed from the colder places to the warm valleys below they 
soon lose their dark coloring matter and become green like adjacent plants 
of the same species. In many cases plants that bear white flowers during 
warm weather, produce flowers of a purplish tinge upon the approach of 
autumn. These and numerous similar phenomena led to the conclusion ' 
that this purple coloring matter in plants served the purpose of absorbing 
heat, thus facilitating growth at low temperatures, and Kny and others, 
have by direct experiment, proven this supposition to be true. 
