210 PLANT LIFE 
a circumstance of which advantage is taken 
in the propagation of valued species and 
varieties. Everybody knows how simple it 
often is to increase a plant by cuttings. 
Sometimes cuttings of roots will grow just 
as easily as those of stems, and even the 
leaves of some plants may be used with almost 
certain chances of success. Begonias, for 
example, and certain other greenhouse plants, 
are generally propagated in this way. 
Again, in the operations of budding and 
grafting, we see how the process of cell division 
and multiplication is followed by cohesion; 
the bud or the graft ‘“‘takes,’’ becomes 
united with the tissues of the stock. Instead 
of the bud or cutting being planted in the 
soil, it is here planted on to another organism. 
And, in passing, we may note that the graft 
produces no roots, as it would have done if 
planted in the soil. The internal stimulus 
which might have led to root production is 
absent, inhibited, perhaps, by the nutrition 
that is plentifully poured in from the tissues 
of the plant on which the bud or graft is 
growing. 
All the various examples of multiplication 
and propagation to which allusion has been 
made in this chapter are instances of what 
may best be called vegetative reproduction or 
propagation, and they are seen to be intimately 
related with the functions of growth and 
nutrition. They represent various methods 
of dividing up the individual, and the liberated 
