CHAPTER VI. 

 ELEMENTS OF PROPAGATION. 



From the point of view of the amateur, propagation may be denned as 

 the art of making young plants from old ones. One might say "new plants" 

 from old ones were it not that newness in a horticultural sense should imply 

 some attainment of difference or variation ; something not previously ex- 

 isting with the same character or qualities. This creative act belongs in 

 the categories of the new science of "genetics" with which we are not 

 concerned at this time. To propagate, then, is simply to make a younger 

 plant as nearly like an older one as nature in her thirst for novelties will 

 allow. 



There ar-e two parts of mature plants which can be transformed or 

 trained into younger plants. One is a seed ; the other is a bud. In both 

 of these and not elsewhere nature has placed the possibility of securing a 

 young plant from an older one, and it is the function of propagation to 

 devise methods, arrange conditions, etc., in such a way that nature shall be 

 stimulated to realize this possibility most abundantly. 



Growth from a bud reproduces, almost without exception, the plant 

 from which the bud is taken and this is often a very important considera- 

 tion. Growth from a seed almost always includes probability of variation ; 

 occasionally for the better, but usually for the worse, if the older plants 

 are themselves variations from fixed or wild types and are desirable 

 because of their differences therefrom. Fortunately, however, there 

 is a way to limit this tendency to variation and to make growth 

 from the seed widely dependable, viz. : to select seed from plants of the 

 type desired. 



The growth of plants from seed depends upon the skill of the propa- 

 gator in securing strong germination and in protecting the seedling from 

 the dangers which beset its infancy. The growth of plants from buds 

 involves other requisites in manipulation. Conditions for growth are, 

 however, roughly alike and they are heat and moisture each in the right 

 degree or amount for the particular plant in hand, though, fortunately, most 

 plants have hardihood to withstand various conditions and do not usually 

 exact the very best though the most skilled propagator is the one who 

 places the least burdens upon a plant's endurance of hardship. There is 

 certainly a personal equation in propagation, but there is no mystery about 

 it. The common remark of a man, "Everything my wife plants grows, 

 but nothing grows for me," is not an indication of a magic touch. It simply 

 means that the lady, consciously or otherwise, ministers to the needs of 

 the plant. Perhaps it also means that women have a quicker apprehension, 

 and more patient observance of details than men. What these details are, 



