76 THE TILLERING OF SORGHUM. 
leave no doubt that in each case they were justified by the - 
results. * 
A careful study of the circumstances under which these 
results were produced, however, will show that they 
are in perfect harmony with each other, that they are 
under perfect control, when the causes producing them 
are understood, and that they are in obedience to a com- 
mon law of growth. 
The production of side shoots from the base of the cen- 
tral stem of the grasses, instead of being an unusual effect, 
is one of the most common and efficient means provided by 
nature for their increase, and even for preserving their ex- 
istence in their great contest for life with other plants. By 
this means the blue grass of the meadows by a compact 
circle of stems and roots is enabled to occupy the soil and 
to resist the encroachments of other plants in its vicinity, 
and to the same cause we owe the fruitfulness of the har- 
vests. The tillering process of wheat is perfectly analo- 
gous to the so-called “suckering” of sorghum, and, in 
offering an explanation of the one, we but reiterate facts 
well known as affecting the other. For convenience, the 
mode of development may be designated in each case by 
the same name. It is to be distinguished, however, from 
a peculiar ramification of the stalk above ground, to which 
the sorghum is sometimes subject in wet summers. In oats, 
true branches spring from the axils of the leaves, and these 
branches bear grain which ripens very unequally, and to 
this mode of increase that last mentioned corresponds; bat 
true “tillering” is an underground process, and it is char- 
acteristic of cane and wheat in common with many other 
plants of the same family. The lateral stems in this case 
spring from underground buds. Although thus connected 
with the central culm, they derive their nourishment from 
roots of their own, which increase in number and length 
