272 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



other, especially in popular writings, will always be fruitful 

 of misconceptions and mistakes. 



The next idea set forth in the paragraph which we review, is, 

 the essential dissimilarity of buds and seeds. The writer 

 thinks that a plant from a seed is a new organization, but a 

 plant from a bud or graft (which is but a developed bud) is 

 but a continuation of a previous plant. With the exception 

 of their integuments, a bud and a seed are the same thing 

 A seed is a bud prepared for one set of circumstances, and 

 a bud is a seed prepared for another set of circumstances 

 it is the same embryo in different garments. The seed has 

 been called, therefore, a &quot;primary bud,&quot; the difference 

 beng one of condition and not of nature. 



It is manifest, then, that the plant which springs from a 

 bud is as really a new plant as that which springs from a 

 seed ; and it is equally true, that a seed may convey the 

 weakness and diseases of its parent with as much facility as 

 a bud or a graft does. If the feebleness of a tree is general, 

 its functions languid, its secretions thin, then a bud or graft 

 will be feeble, and so would be its seed ; or if a tree be 

 thoroughly tainted with disease, the buds would not escape, 

 nor the tree springing from them neither would its seed, 

 or a tree springing from it. A tree from a bud of the 

 Doyenne pear is just as much a new tree a? one from its 

 seed. 



The idea which we controvert has received encourage 

 ment from the fact, that a bud produces a fruit like the 

 parent tree, while, oftentimes, a seed yields only a variety 

 of such fruit. But, it is probable that this is never the case 

 with seeds except when they have been brought into a 

 state of what Van Mons calls variation. In their natural 

 and uncultivated state, seeds will reproduce their parent 

 with as much fidelity as a bud or a graft. 



The liability of a variety to run out, when propagated by 

 bud or graft, is not a whit greater than when propagated by 

 seed, in so far as the nature of the vegetable is concerned. 



