The _Boston Cultivator_, speaking of this process, says: “As the
qualities of the potato-ball or apple differ considerably from the
root or tuber, it may be that the juices destined to nourish the balls
will not, on removing the blossoms, go to increase the roots. This
view is not unreasonable.”
We do not suppose the theory to be, that the sap tending to the bloom
and ball _returns_ to the root. But, simply, that there will be so
much less food to be prepared, and therefore so much less exhaustion
to the vegetable economy. It is well known that the filling out and
ripening of seeds is eminently exhausting to the plant. It has long
been the custom of florists who wish show-flowers, to refuse their
bulbous plants leave to bloom for one season, plucking off the bud,
that they might be so much the stronger for the next year’s blooming.
But we suppose the truth to be this. The sap is prepared in the leaf
and enters the distributing vessels of the plant. It is conveyed to
every organ; each part, receiving its portion, _modifies it by a
farther chemical action peculiar to itself_. Thus in the case of an
apple-tree. The elaborated sap which goes to the leaf, the alburnum,
the liber, the blossom, the fruit is the same in all; but the fruit
gives it a still further elaboration, by which it imparts the peculiar
properties belonging to it, in distinction from the tissues; so of the
bark, the blossom, etc. If, then, the seed-vessels are removed, so
much less elaborated sap is consumed as they would have required; and
this, or at least, portions of it, are given to the other parts of the
vegetable economy.