244 
ON ACCELERATING THE FLOWERING OF PLANTS. 
able horticulturist, Mr. Cuthill, of Parson’s-green, first communicated 
to the Gardeners’ Magazine. This practice consists in obliging (we 
may say) kidney beans, both dwarfs and runners, to pass their ado¬ 
lescent stage under glass in the spring; and soon as frosts are no 
longer dreaded, are planted in the open air, when the plants imme¬ 
diately begin to bear. This is really a very useful expedient, as well 
for market gardeners as others. 
The same tact is had recourse to in the culture of melons, cucumbers, 
and many of our tender annual flowers; that is, compelling them to 
pass their youth in a preparatory asylum, in order to make them yield 
their fruit as early in our summer as possible. 
From the consideration of herbaceous plants we naturally turn to 
shrubs and trees; and here the description of the development of the 
cauliflower, and other similarly constituted herbs, equally applies. 
The seeds of chestnuts and walnuts are sown; one or more stems 
rise, and become branched in the air; but they are for some years 
barren, because the fructiferous organs have not yet thrown off their 
investment of leaves, with which each is environed in the bosom of 
each bud. The flowers, therefore, cannot come forth till the stem, 
branches, and twigs are so far elongated as to unfold the inner 
coverings of the floral members and allow them to come forth. The 
same is the case with other fruit trees, when raised from seed. Apple 
and pear trees, when raised from seed, for the purpose of obtaining new 
varieties, do not present their flowers till the sixth or seventh year, for 
so long is their state of adolescence. These trees, however, are seldom 
propagated in this way, and for two special reasons; because the true 
character of the sort can very seldom be perpetuated by seed, and 
because waiting seven years for the fruit is a loss of time. The 
kinds are therefore increased by budding or grafting, by which means 
an aged and fructiferous head is obtained in a comparatively short time. 
Sometimes, indeed, where due precautions are taken, flowers often, and 
occasionally fruit, are borne on the graft inserted in the same year. 
It must be observed, however, that buds always, and grafts most 
frequently, require a season of barren adolescence, like seedlings ; but 
this proceeds from the luxuriance of growth with which both com¬ 
mence their career when united to a vigorous congenial stock; as it is 
well known to practical men that both may be made fruitful in a very 
short time after their union with the stock. 
From the foregoing remarks, it will appear that by starving the 
cauliflower, or any other vigorous growing herb whose flowers are 
required, the latter may be produced at almost any time before the 
regular season, were they worth the trouble, And by similar means of 
