Elizabeth Town Gazette

From the Philadelphia Union.

RURAL ECONOMY.

Mr. Bronson,--Supposing that the extract enclosed (from the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1818, p. 159) relative to Fruit trees, would be interesting to your country as well as city subscribers I have been induced to send them for publication, more especially as the season for making the experiment is approaching. The writer of this would be gratified if any one who may make the experiment would make the result public through the medium of your paper.

C.

The following easy, simple, and infallible method of forcing fruit trees to blossom and to bear fruit, has been translated from the German of the Rev. George Charles Lewis Hempel, (Secretary to the Pomological Society of Altenburgh, in Saxony,) by George Henry Noehden, L. L. D. F.L.S. &c.

" In my early years I saw my father, who was fond of pomology, and skilled in that science, cutting a ring on several branches of trees, which already were in blossom, for the purpose of producing, by that means, larger fruit than usual. This was not his own invention; but, as far as I can recollect, derived from a French journal. Thirty years ago, when I was a boy, I practised this operation in imitation of him, and thereby obtained larger pears and plums. In repeating this operation of ringing the branches, which I did merely for the purpose of getting larger fruit, I observed that the branches so operated upon always bore the next year. By this reiterated appearance, I was led to the idea, that perhaps this mode of ringing the bark might be a means of compelling every unproductive branch to yield fruit. With this view, I cut rings upon a considerable number of branches, which as yet showed no blossoms; and found, by repeating the experiment, the truth of my supposition indisputably confirmed by experience. The application of this experiment, whereby upon every bough or branch fruit may artificially be produced, is very simple and easy. With a sharp knife make a cut in the bark of the branch which you mean to force to bear, and not far from the place where it is connected with the stem ; or, if it be a small branch or shoot, near to where it is joined to the bough : the cut is to go round the branch, or to encircle it, and to penetrate to the wood. A quarter of an inch from this cut you make a second cut, like the first, round the branch, so that by both encircling the branch, you have marked a ring upon the branch, a quarter of an inch broad, between the two cuts. The bark between these two cuts you take clear away with a knife, down to the wood, removing even the fine inner bark, which immediately lies upon the wood; so that no connexion whatever remains between the two parts of the bark, but the bare and naked wood appears white and smooth. But this bark-ring, which is to compel the tree to bear, must be made at the right time, that is, when in all nature the buds are strongly swelling, or are breaking out into blossom. In the same year, a callus is formed at the edges of the ring, on both sides, and the connexion of the bark that had been interrupted is restored again, without any detriment to the tree or the branch operated upon, in which the artificial wound soon again grows over. By this simple, though artificial means of forcing every fruit tree, with certainty to bear, you obtain the following important advantages :

1st. You may compel every young tree of which you do not know the sort, to show its fruit, and decide sooner whether, being of a good quality, it may remain in its fruit state, or requires to be grafted.

2d. You may thereby, with certainty, get fruit of every good sort of which you wish to see the produce in the next year.

3d. This method may probably serve to increase considerably the quantity of fruit in the country. The branches so operated upon are hung full of fruit, while the others that are not ringed, often have nothing, or very little on them. This effect is easy to be explained from the theory of the motion of the sap; for where the sap moves slowly in a tree, it produces fruit buds, which is the case in old trees: when it moves vigorously, the tree forms wood, or runs into shoots, as happens with young trees.

Though I arrived at this discovery myself, in consequence of trying the same process with a different view, viz: to increase only the size of the fruit, but not to force barren branches, that were only furnished with leaf buds, to bear, this latter application being before quite unknown to me; I will, on that account by no means give myself out for the first inventor of this operation ; but I was ignorant of the effects to be produced by this method, and only discovered them by repeated experiments of my own, which I made for the promotion of Pomology Frequent experience of the completest success has confirmed the truth of my observation. Nor do I think that this method is generally known; at least, to all those to whom I showed the experiment, the effect produced appeared new and surprising."