BUCKWHEAT-TREE. 
order to give proper firmness to the fat.—The 
grain of buckwheat is likewise admirable for fat- 
tening poultry and pigeons; yet, in this case also 
it ought, during the last few days, to be accom- 
panied or even substituted by barley. Fowls and 
turkeys, when fattened with buckwheat, have an 
eminently delicious flavour; and the poultry, 
particularly the turkeys, of Norfolk, very probably 
owe to their feeding upon it all the excellence 
which occasions them to be preferred in the mar- 
kets of London to those of every other part of 
England. Pheasants are so fond of buckwheat 
that they travel miles in search of it; and, if 
one or two waggon-loads of it, unthrashed, be 
laid in small heaps in different parts of the covers 
of a preserve, all the pheasants of the immedi- 
ately circumjacent district will be attracted thi- 
ther as their resort.—Lawson’s Agriculturist’s 
Manual.— Bulletin des Sciences A gricoles.—Rennie’s 
Field Naturalist’s Magazine—Literary Gazette— 
| Magazine of Domestic Economy.— Quarterly Jour- 
nal of Agriculture —Loudon’s Hortus Britannicus. 
—Hunter’s Georgical Essays.— Young's Farmer's 
Calendar—Liebig?s Chemistry of Agriculture — 
Catalogue of the Highland Society’s Museum.— 
Low's Elements of Practical Agriculture.—British 
Husbandry.— Doyles Practical Husbandry.—Lou- 
don’s Gardener's Magazine—Rhamn’s Dictionary of 
the Farm—Mill’s Husbandry.— Duhamel’s Ele- 
ments of Agriculture. 
BUCKWHEAT-TREE,—botanically Mylocary- 
um ligustrinum. An ornamental evergreen shrub, 
forming a genus of itself, in the heath-flowering 
family. It is called in the Botanical Magazine, 
Cliftonia ligustrina. It is a native of Georgia, 
| requires a little protection in winter, grows to 
the height of about nine feet, has privet-like 
leaves, and four-winged seeds, and produces white 
flowers in May and June. 
BUD. A bud is that part which “ contains 
the rudiments of a plant, or of part of a plant, 
for a while in a latent state, till the time of the 
year, and other circumstances, favour their evolu- 
tion.” From buds, then, an entire plant may be 
produced, if placed in favourable circumstances, 
or only a branch, or leaves, or flowers. We can, 
however, reckon no more than two kinds, those 
that produce leaves, and those that produce 
flowers. There is the closest analogy between 
these organs and bulbs; so, close, indeed, that 
Mirbel, and some others, arrange them together. 
Practical cultivators mark distinct characters. 
peculiar to each kind of bud. Those that pro- 
duce leaves are small, long, and pointed; the 
flower buds, again, are thick, short, and round. 
It appears probable that some unknown agents 
influence the formation either of flower-buds 
or of leaf-buds, or rather that some circum- 
stances will cause the evolution of either of 
them from the same bud. A fact recorded in 
the Linnzean Transactions in some measure fa- 
vours this opinion. The Solandra grandiflora, a 
native of Jamaica, had been long cultivated in 
BUD. 567 
the English stoves, and propagated by means of 
cuttings; but none of the plants ever displayed 
any signs of fructification. They had been always 
well supplied with water. One plant, by acci- 
dent, was left without being watered in the dry 
stove at Kew: the consequence was, that the 
branches were much stunted in their growth, 
and flowers were produced. The experiment 
has been frequently repeated with success. It 
appears that whatever checks the luxuriance of 
the leaves, tends to the formation of flowers and 
seeds. 
For the purpose of converting leaf-buds into 
flower-buds, various expedients may be used with 
advantage; such as scoring the bark to the wood 
very deeply with a knife, twisting a wire tightly 
round the stem, or by cutting off a cylinder of 
the bark, and replacing it with a bandage. It is 
said that there is an intermediate species of bud, 
which retains some of the characters of each. A 
striking difference has been noted between the 
leaf and the flower-buds; the first may be re- 
moved with impunity from its original situation, 
and placed in the earth, where it will vegetate 
with luxuriance; but the last uniformly dies. 
Both may be removed to another stock with suc- 
cess. This operation is called budding or inocu- 
lation, and is well known to gardeners. See next 
article. 
The usual position of buds is in the axille of 
the leaves, except in the genera mimosa, gledit- 
sia, and a few others. The buds are opposite to 
each other when the branches or leaves are op- 
posite, alternate when the latter are alternate, 
and terminal when the leaves are terminal. Jn 
those plants that have both opposite and alter- 
nate leaves or branches, the buds are commonly 
solitary. 
Various forms are assumed by different buds, 
according to those of the contained leaves; an 
admirable adaptation of convenience to beauty 
and regularity being always preserved. Nature 
has given different coverings to different vege- 
table productions, according to the peculiarities 
of their respective climates. In northern re- 
gions, the buds are almost uniformly clothed 
with scales, or with a downy substance ; some- 
times these are conjoined, besides being coated 
with a resinous matter. The horse-chestnut isa 
good illustration of large well-formed buds. By 
means of these coverings, the young bud is en- 
abled to brave the vicissitudes of the seasons, and 
to be ready to burst forth on the first approach 
of spring. This singular power of retaining its 
vitality, has been considered by some physiolo- 
gists as the distinctive character of true buds. 
The most external of the scales are dry and hard, 
while those which are more protected from the 
influence of the weather, are soft and succulent. 
The protection afforded to the bud, by the resin- 
ous covering which occasionally envelopes it, is 
well shown by a very simple,experiment. Take 
a bud, for instance, of the horse-chestnut, and 
A 
