Page:Husbandman and Housewife 1820.djvu/180

 hackled, beaten and rubbed fine; and at last, dressed through a large comb, and through a very fine one. By this process the flax acquires a bright and soft thread. The tow which is off, when papered up and combed like cotton, is not only used for many of the same purposes, but makes lint for veterinary surgeons.

WITH a sharp knife cut the bark of the branch, which you mean to force to bear, not far from the place where it is connected with the stem; or if a small branch or shoot, near where it is joined with the larger bough; the cut is to be made round the branch so as to encircle it, and penetrate to the wood. A quarter of an inch from the first cut, make a second cut like the first, 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—then with a knife separate the bark from the wood, removing even the fine inner bark which lies immediately upon the wood, so that no connexion whatever remains between the two parts of the bark, leaving the wood naked, white and smooth.

This operation must be performed when the buds are strongly swelling, or breaking out into blossoms; the same year a callous is formed on at each edge of the ring, and the bark is again restored without detriment to the tree or the branch operated upon.

This operation seems calculated to force those trees to bear, which put out a proportion of blossoms, -and yet bear no fruit; or if they bear, the fruit often drops from the tree before ripe. The fruit from trees so operated upon will be larger, more fair, and ripe several weeks earlier than the other fruit upon the same tree. It is well known to botanists that the sap ascends