300 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tions. The amount which we do not know is astonishing. If a " little learn- 

 ing is a dangerous thing," then surely are we all in danger! But there is an 

 universal invitation to know more. The materials for study are everywhere. 

 No science has more of them than has horticulture. This science is new, fresh, 

 bracing. It invites us all out of doors, and challenges us to ask questions. 

 Most people would find more contentment in life for some attention given to 

 trees and flowers. But you will never believe it until you try it. My fingers 

 might itch with advice and my pen burn the paper with enthusiasm, but I 

 could not convince you. I cannot describe the charm of an acquaintance with 

 a growing plant. You must live in the charm or die without it. You will not 

 experience it if you set out a tree and let it die, neither if you set it out and 

 soMie day gather its fruit. You must ask it questions; if you do not it will 

 always be but a simple tree. Watch it closely. Eaise it from the seed. Every 

 week you will catch it in some new trick. 



THE PROPAGATION OF WOODY PLANTS. 

 LOUIS KXAPPER BEFORE INGHAM COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Woody plants are propagated either by natural means or artificial methods. 

 We call natural propagation that obtained by means of seeds. This produces 

 plants which are like the mother plant in its general characteristics. Should 

 seeds of varieties, however, be used for cultivation, it often happens that the 

 young plant suffers more or less material change. Thus the seeds of our best 

 pear trees and cultivated roses reproduce pear trees and roses, but the latter 

 have neither exactly the same wood nor foliage, nor the same blossoms and 

 fruit as the mother plant which produced the seed. 



Artificial propagation takes place by slips, shoots and cions. Its end is to 

 faithfully propagate a certain variety in all its parts. An occasional deviation 

 would only be caused by chance or change of cultivation. Such contingencies 

 and deviations (freaks of nature) form a partial source of new products, which 

 each year appear in the province of gardening. 



Propagation from Seed. 



Propagation by means of seed is the operation by which the seed is entrusted 

 to the soil in order to bring forth plants. The process is not the same for dif- 

 ferent kinds of plants ; it changes in accordance with the choice of season and 

 method. 



Nature advises us by her example to sow the seed directly after its complete 

 maturity, but the conditions imposed upon the gardener do not allow him to 

 follow this advice under all circumstances. Our sowing in the open air takes 

 place at two different seasons of the year : First, from April to June ; second, 

 from August to October. 



Among the first are the grains of those species which sprout quickly and 

 whose young shoots become woody fast enough to resist the cold of winter, e. g., 

 the elm. This tree blossoms and ripens its seed in the spring, so that a sow- 

 ing of elms, if it takes place in June, can furnish little stems for the nursery 

 by the time the leaves fall. We sow directly after harvest the seeds of stone 

 fruit, with a hard shell which opens with difficulty, in order to soften the hard 

 seed-shell, and by this means allow a freer development of the embryo ; as, for 

 example, the stones of the plum, cherry, apricot, peach and almond. 



