194 



THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



times in the home of a friend a geranium of par- 

 ticular beauty, the hke of which he would be glad to 

 possess. The accommodating friend cuts a small piece 

 from the geranium. This is stuck into poor but well- 

 watered ground, develops roots, and eventually grows 

 into a geranium stalk exactly like the one from which 

 it came and of which it is in reality only a detached 

 part. 



In similar fashion, if one wants a particular kind 

 of apple, he never trusts to planting an apple seed. 

 Going to the tree of the variety he desires, he takes 

 from it a small twig provided with a bud and inserts 

 this bud into a cleft made in the young branch of 

 another apple tree. The young bud so inserted starts 

 up into a new branch, resembling almost absolutely, 

 not the tree wdiich feeds it with sap, but the tree from 

 which the bud was originally taken. 



When we w^ish a particular variety of potato we 

 obtain pieces of the potato of the kind we desire. 

 Each of these must contain an eye, which is a bud 

 of the old potato. When the sprout appears the new 

 plant will be practically identical in character with 

 the plant from which the potato was taken. This sort 

 of reproduction, in which a piece of the old parent 

 grows up into the new generation, is called the asexual 

 method. But one parent is concerned in the process, 



