III.] A BATTLE IN A TREE-TOP. 89 



At the close of the third year the little tree should have 

 produced about thirty -five hundred buds or branch - 

 germs. It was next observed in July of its fourth year, 

 when it stood just eight feet high ; instead of having 

 between three and four thousand branches, it bore a 

 total of two hundred and ninety -seven, and most of 

 them were only weak spurs from one to three inches 

 long. It was plain that not more than twenty, at the 

 outside, of even this small number could long persist. 

 The main stem or trunk bore forty -three branches, of 

 which only eleven had much life in them, and even 

 some of this number showed signs of weakness. In 

 other words, in my little cherry tree, standing alone and 

 having things all its own way, only one bud out of 

 every hundred and seventy -five succeeded in making 

 even a fair start towards a permanent branch. And 

 this struggle must have proceeded with greater sever- 

 ity as the top became more complex, had I not put an 

 end to its travail with the axe! 



II. 



I am now ready to say that I believe bud -variation 

 to be one of the most significant and important phe- 

 nomena of vegetable life, and that it is due to the same 

 causes, operating in essentially the same way, which 

 underlie all variation in the plant world. As some of 

 you may not be familiar with the technical use of the 

 term, I will explain that a bud -variety is an unusual or 

 striking form or branch appearing upon a plant ; or, as 

 Darwin put it, bud variation is a term used to "include 

 all those sudden changes in structure or appearance 



