STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 6t 



These illustrations are all taken from sexual reproductions, it is true ; but 

 1 cannot perceive that there is any ground to doubt that the same princi- 

 ple applies in each case of reproduction, only differing in the degree to 

 which the influences may act, as I will attempt to show hereafter. 



The bud, considered as a young plant, and the spore as the initiatory 

 cell of a young plant, have at their inception the one single parental 

 element to govern and control them. The seed, as a young plant, has at 

 its origin two elements which, from the fact that they are separate, may 

 be to a degree diverse in their inlluences; hence it is plain that the inci- 

 dent of compound generation may be a disturbing cause leading to a vari- 

 ation in the offspring. How do the phenogamia (seed-producers) and the 

 cryptogamia (spore-producers) stand as varying or as constant plants? 

 Why, where there is one variation in a plant of the latter there are a 

 million in the former. All of our domesticated plants, which may or do 

 fertilize from separate plants, are thoroughly variable as a rule. Every 

 fertilization in this case (from flowers upon separate plants) is, in a certain 

 sense, a constitutional cross. The two parents could hardly be in exactly 

 similar conditions, and under exactly similar circumstances, though they 

 might be of the same variety; hence the plantlet with two parents has, 

 from this cause alone, many chances of variability. But when we con- 

 sider that both classes of reproduction exist in the same plant when it 

 bears seed and produces buds, we shall see that greater disturbing causes 

 yet may supervene. In plants which bear seed, it is plain that repro- 

 duction through generation is no longer depended upon to any great 

 extent, the gems or buds assuming the office of points of axial extension, 

 merely as a provision for a large compound plant. A tree with many 

 thousand buds is really many thousand individuals of that particular 

 variety, all joined together as they originated, and all contributing in 

 their work of life to the common end — that is, the production of seed. 

 But if one bud be properly detached, it may sui)ply itself with roots of its 

 own, and live and develop independently; or it maybe ingrafted and 

 unite its fortunes with comj)atil)le ])arts of another individual : but, do 

 what we may in growing from cuttings, stolons, buds, cions, etc., Ave 

 shall see that the apparently all absorbing object of life with the plant is 

 to produce seed, and thus to provide in the natural way for a continuation 

 of existence. Now, suppose we continue to thwart this mastar endeavor 

 of the plant to reproduce by seeding — suppose we do as the planters have 

 done with the sugar-cane, treat it in an unnatural manner in several differ- 

 ent ways, l)ut especially propagate it only by continuation, practically 

 degrade it in the organic scale, so that it shall be only a gem or bud pro- 

 ducing plant — it will in time, like the sugar-cane, even bud vary, so that 

 it can not longer produce seed. Su]3pose we graft and regraft, and con- 

 tinue to propagate by extension, because we want a certain variety, we 

 are all this time applying a disturbing force which, if we once give it a 

 chance to exhibit its fruits by the production of variations in seedlings, 

 will astonish us. All these things which men do to the plant to improve 

 it, or better it for their use, are direct attacks upon the long-established 

 habit of the wildling, and, if continued, must result in breaking up that 



