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considerable quantity of fresb matter was deposited in the root, and if 
the plant could have survived the winter, tliis was stored up with a view 
to enable it to make another effort to produce flowers and seed in the 
following year. 
A plant of the apple or pear raised immediately from seed is generally 
many years before it bears fruit; by grafting a scion on the branch of ano¬ 
ther tree in full bearing, fruit is much sooner obtained, because the old tree 
contains within itself a greater store of elaborated sap than the seedling. 
If trees, when arrived at maturity, are from some cause, such as the 
destruction of their blossoms by a late spring frost, prevented from bear¬ 
ing fruit, in the next year the crop is generally fine and abundant, owing 
to the quantity of sap which has accumulated in the tree during the pre¬ 
vious summer. By supporting a heavy crop of fruit one season some 
apple trees become so exhausted as not to bear a crop the succeeding 
year, hence some trees acquire a habit of bearing every other year. It 
is an easy matter, as Downing and Thomas remark, to alter the bearing 
year of these trees, all that is required is to destroy the blossoms pro¬ 
duced in the bearing year, and an abundant crop will be the probable 
result the year following. 
A tree may be able to ripen all the fruit it sets, but the size and quality 
of the fruit may be considerably improved by early and judicious thin¬ 
ning. If a tree under given circumstances can only elaborate a certain 
amount of organizable matter, and this has to be divided between one hun¬ 
dred fruits instead of fifty, then the fruit in the former case could only re¬ 
ceive half as much nourishment as in the latter. But if fruit was thinned 
to this extent the probability is, that the sap which would have been ex¬ 
pended in producing 100 plants, would not be wholly employed in sup¬ 
porting half that number. In the latter case the fruit might attain the 
highest state of perfection it was capable of under the conditions of soil 
and climate, and yet a surplus of organizable matter might remain to 
contribute to the growth of branches and leaves, which by their action 
would prepare matter to be stored in the wood for the support of blos¬ 
soms and fruit in the following year. Large, handsome, well-flavored 
specimens of a popular variety will always command a ready sale at good 
prices. An extensive fruit grower recently stated in the Horticulturist, 
that by selecting the finest specimens of his fruit he was able to obtain 
