III
THE BUDS ON THE TWIGS
Now the buds begin to break. The firm winter-buds swell. Their scales part. Tips of green appear. Tiny leaves come forth, neatly rolled inward, growing as they expand, the stalks lengthening. Resurrection is astir in the tree.
Several leaves issue from every bud. From some buds arise only leaves; from others a flower-cluster emerges from the leaf-rosette, showing faint color even before it expands. Very close together and tight these unopened little flowers are packed as they emerge; if we had looked at them with a lens as they lay in the bud in the long winter we should understand why; now they escape their bonds and rapidly grow as they are delivered, yet at first pressed together by head and stem in their soft gray wool.
Thus are there two kinds of buds on the twig of the bearing apple-tree,—the leaf-buds (sending forth leaves only), and the flower-buds (bearing both leaves and flowers). And if we wish to analyze more closely, we discover two kinds of leaf-buds,—those that send forth a rapidly growing shoot bearing the leaves, and those from which the leaf-cluster remains practically sessile on the branch. These latter, or the strongest and best of them, will probably give rise to short fruiting spurs and the others to elongated leafy branches.
Before me as I write is an apple limb more than three feet long. It has been a vigorous grower, for it is only three years old. The years can be readily made out; there are two sets of "rings" separating them. You may see these rings on all young apple limbs. They represent the scars of the scales of the past terminal buds.
Three years ago my shoot was sent off from its parent branch; that year it grew but four inches, bearing leaves on its sides, in the axils of which developed buds for the winter and at the end a larger terminal bud. Let us call this shoot 1918. Two years ago (1919), whilst I was in a distant land, the terminal bud gave rise to a shoot nineteen inches long; two buds near the end of the 1918 shoot pushed out clusters of leaves and made spurs about one-half inch long; all the other buds, five in number, remained dormant, and now they are dead and are rapidly becoming mere scars. Last year (1920) the terminal bud of 1919 gave rise to a shoot fifteen inches long; three buds at the base of this two-year (1919) shoot remained dormant; fourteen buds produced spurs. It is now the spring of 1921; the 1920 shoot has four dormant buds at its base, ten rosettes of leaves from the other buds, and a pushing terminal shoot.
On my branch this year, therefore, are 5 plus 3 plus 4, or 12 dormant buds of all the years; 2 plus 14 plus 10, or 26 spurs; 1 terminal bud continuing the onward growth.