274 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



organism. It is something not possessed by species, genus or 

 variety, nor by nations, States or towns. It is something given 

 only with the hereditary force of parental blood. It is bestowed 

 only upon the individual of parental production. A new life is 

 Drought into existence only by a blending of parental individual- 

 ties into a new and different individual, whose life is then com- 

 menced to continue for a generation. 



In the nursery there are two distinct divisions of propagation. 

 One is from seed where there is true reproduction, or the forma- 

 tion of new individuals. The other is by division, or a continua- 

 tion of an individual previously formed. In the latter common 

 method of propagation, there is no true new individual formed, 

 and hence no new life commenced. In case of propagation by 

 cuttings and layers, it is simply a continuation by division of the 

 once formed new individual, which has its tendency to live for 

 only a generation, and commencing with its formation. 



In the case of propagation by grafting and budding, the matter 

 is somewhat more complex, inasmuch as a new, true individual 

 is used as a part of the new division, and from which new life is the 

 influence manifest upon the old. 



The development of a single bud from an individual, gives us 

 only a continuation of that individual, or only a branch of that 

 individual, so to speak, which is subject to the same laws govern- 

 ing its life and vitality as though it had remained on the indi- 

 vidual ; excepting such modifications as may be made by its new 

 environments. If, for instance, an individual in the vegetable 

 kingdom is born whose generation is fifty years — that is„ its 

 normal tendency is to exist such a time — and after forty years 

 have passed we take a bud and develop it into another tree, or 

 really into a separate branch of same tree, what have we done to 

 overcome its tendency to decline with old age, as if left on the 

 old tree, only so far as any temporary influence, due to root, new 

 soil might be felt? Aside from these influences, nothing has 

 been done to check the encroachments of time, and when the 

 generation is ended to which our branch belongs, it will succumb 

 to its enemies. Such are the laws of life and death. 



Among these causes that modify the life of the divided twig or 

 bud, are soil, climate and the new individual to which it has been 

 joined. An individual moved to a more favorable soil would, to 

 a certain extent, have its length of life increased. Nature, her- 

 self, has adopted this plan for continuation in her process of 

 division by runners, layers and sprouts. 



Probably the influence of greatest importance is the blending 

 of new life with the old, as in case of budding and grafting. 

 Here the old life is worked on the new individual, recently pro- 

 duced from seed. There is a blending of vital forces, and the 

 youth and vigor of the root or new individual is felt by the old 



