Addresses — Plant Development and Training. 213 



fact being oviparous and viviparous, inasmuch as it produces 

 seeds, and also young plants, from true buds, in its tubers. In this 

 plant the true fruit, the seed, is not edible; is in fact poisonous to a 

 certain degree. It is the starch, sugar and albuminoids contained 

 in the flesh of the tuber, which is 'the valuable part. The straw- 

 berry plant is still another illustration. It propagates itself both 

 by seed and by runners; the runners in this case forming 

 above ground, striking root and becoming independent plants. 

 Here the seedy fruit is the valuable part. In those cases where 

 propagation takes effect by stolens, runners, or buds, the young- 

 lings are true to the parent variety. When propagated from the 

 seed they are widely divergent. Those plants that reproduce 

 themselves by seed, come constant as to their variety, or as a rule 

 do so; those producing themselves by bud and seed, come univer- 

 sally constant from the bud, and vary as to their seed production, 

 and even from the same seed capsule. The onion is a still more 

 complex example in its triune manner of reproduction. The 

 scales of the bulb are simply enlarged leaves, on leaf bases, 

 crowded around a central stem, but each with a possible bud in its 

 axil. Here we have the young plant edible as to its leaves and ed- 

 ible as to its mature bulbs. It is also seed bearing. It reproduces 

 itself as to its central shoot, and there it is a passible plant in the 

 axil of the scales. Some varieties of the onion do provide for per- 

 petuation in this way; as the shallot, the English multiplier and the 

 potato onion. 



Trees also are reproduced both from the bud and the seed. Theo- 

 retically each bud is the germ of a future tree. It contains a fu- 

 ture tree. Practically, in many varieties, it is easier to reproduce 

 plants from seed than from the bud. In fact, if it were not for the 

 singular habit of seed variation, in our valuable fruits long under 

 cultivation, propagation by grafting or budding would scarcely be 

 practiced. Fortunately, this seed variation has given us all that is 

 valuable in fruits, and nearly so in plants and flowers. Within 

 comparatively a few years, science has entered the field of repro- 

 duction, and we may now hybridize, and cross breed through the 

 flowers, with far greater certainty of success than formerly. 



Soil has much to do with the variations of fruits we may raise. 

 Climate, however, has still more influence. A wide range of soils 

 will allow of the production of many fruits. In Wisconsin I have 



