have supported as much fruit as would have been equal

to them in weight.

"Besides, I have known by experience that trees, by this short cutting, are not so apt to bear.

"At the request of a certain gentleman, I shortened the branches of a peach tree on one side, according to the rules laid down by the best authors; but the other side I nailed to the wall, without shortening one branch, which is a method I have practised many years. The crop of fruit, as well as the number of young branches on that side of the tree where the shoots were not shortened, were so greatly preferable to those on the other, that the gentleman was thoroughly convinced, by this and other instances given him, that shortening of branches was an ill practice, both in the peach trees and many others.

"The fig-tree, of some kinds, bears plentifully upon standards, if their branches be never shortened; and I have seen fruit ripen well upon them in England, where the soil was dry and mixed with stones, in such places where they were sheltered from the winds; but in others, where the fruit is exposed, it is commonly beaten off by the winds before it arrives at maturity, as it always grows very near the end of the branches, and on no other part except the present year's shoots, or the upper ends of those of the last year; therefore, these shoots ought not to be ended in the winter; and there is no necessity of shortening to procure young branches, for there is always a sufficient stock of them rising yearly from the roots, which, when the trees are planted against walls, may be trained up to succeed others, and if they grow to the top of the wall may be taken out close to the ground."

The clear, simple, and candid observations of this author, might have been expected to convince every per

son,

son, of common understanding, of the gross impropriety of the general practice of the nurseryman and the gardener; but it seems to have effected very little, if any, improvement.

It is difficult to conceive how things could have been more unnaturally or ignorantly conducted in Hitt's time, than in the present age; and if such was the case, how is it to be accounted for, that his book should have effected so little in a field where so much was to be done?

I can only suppose, that the attention of his readers being caught by the singularity of his sketches, and finding in the course of a season or two, the difficulty, if not the total impossibility, of maintaining a tree in such a precise form, upon the principles laid down, suffered themselves to be prejudiced against the whole of the work, and therefore threw it aside.

I must, however, remark, that in his comparison of the surface of a standard and a wall tree, and stating the impracticability of extending the surface of the latter in proportion with the former, without pruning, as the only reason he could assign for pruning or cutting out, Hitt discovers rather a contracted understanding of his subject; for it will always be found, that what a wall tree loses in thickness and number of branches, may be (and where nature is properly attended to, is) made up in length of branches, and thereby cutting is rendered as unnecessary in the one as in the other.

Notice on the Effect of watering Fruit Trees early in the Spring. By JAMES SOWERBY, Esq. F. L. S. &c.

IN

From the TRANSACTIONS of the LONDON
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

I

N the spring of the year 1815 the drying March winds, as they are called, were considered very injurious to the early blossoming apple, pear, and other fruit trees. was repeatedly told, both by my neighbours and those from Norfolk and Suffolk, that just as the fruit was beginning to set, these drying winds caused it to fall off, like the leaves in autumn, so that the expected produce was early lost; and that this happened continually, to their great loss and inconvenience.

Now, as I was so fortunate as to preserve the little fruit at Mead Place, I presume others may do the same; and indeed, from the reward, which appears to me more than proportionate to the labour, I feel confident, that the hint I am about to give, however trifling it may appear, may be useful.

As these winds have generally succeeded the blossoming of my trees, which, by the way, are planted in a very bad soil, the whole used to be blown off about the time for the setting of the young fruit; I thought it probable that a good dose of water at the roots would strengthen and save the fruit; this was given, the effect was seen in twenty-four hours, the young fruit then resisted the attack of these winds, and a large crop was produced.

By these means not only were the trees enabled to produce their fruit in abundance, but also to increase them in size to nearly double; thus a tree which in 1814 produced a very few pears of about half a pound each, in 1815 produced a great number, nearly double that weight.

Он

On the Malic Acid. By M. GAY LUSSAC.

From the ANNALES DE CHIMIE ET DE PHYSIQUE.

MOST

OST of the treatises of chemistry describe the malic acid as precipitating the nitrates of lead and silver, and differing in this respect from the citric acid, with which the malic has a very great resemblance. It always appeared to me extraordinary, that whilst all the insoluble malates dissolved with great ease in even the weakest vegetable acids, the nitrate of lead should be decomposed by the malic acid. I therefore made the following experiments.

I took some juice of house-leek, (semper-vivum tectorium,) added nitrate of lead in slight excess, and washed the precipitate till the edulcorating water was no longer blackened by sulphuric acid. I then decomposed the precipitate, by sulphuric acid, in a small excess, separated this excess by digestion with litharge, and threw down that portion of the litharge which the malic acid had dissolved, by passing through it a current of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, after which I filtered and evaporated the acid.

The malic acid thus obtained, gave a precipitate, with nitrate of lead; but having evaporated it almost to a syrupy consistence, and added alcohol, a good deal of malate of lime fell down, and the alcohol retained in solution only the pure malic acid. The spirit was distilled off, and the acid re-dissolved in water; and it now no longer gave any precipitate, either with nitrate of lead or nitrate of silver.

These experiments, therefore, shew that the malic acid only decomposes nitrate of lead when it is combined with lime; and that it is the malate of lime and nitrate of

jead

lead that decompose each other by the law of double affinities.

It is remarkable, that lime should remain in combination with the malic acid in the precipitate formed by nitrate of lead with the juice of house-leek, even after many washings, since the malate of lime by itself is soluble in water. Probably in this case a triple insoluble compound is formed of malic acid, lime, and oxyd of lead.

We may conclude from these experiments, that the malic acid has not before been obtained in a state of purity, and entirely free from the lime with which it is naturally mixed. To prepare pure malic acid from houseleek juice, first precipitate it with acetite, or better with nitrate of lead, wash the precipitate well, then treat it with a slight excess of sulphuric acid, and boil it with a little litharge; then pass through it a current of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, to separate the lead; evaporate the clear liquid; add alcohol to separate the malate of lime; distil off the alcohol with a gentle heat, and dissolve in water the pure malic acid that remains.

The malic acid has a great resemblance to the citric, but is distinguished from it in not being crystallisable, and in forming with the different bases salts much more soluble in water and in weak acids.

VOL. XXXIV.-SECOND SERIES. Ccc Ana