HOW PLANTS ARE PROPAGATED 39 



we must find some other part of them that will grow. The 

 part of the plant that can most nearly take the place of 

 a seed is a bud. The sugar planter places long sugar 

 canes in the ground, expecting the buds on them to grow. 

 In place of the sugar cane he may plant a piece of an 

 Irish potato containing one or more eyes, or clusters of 

 buds. But if he so cuts the potato that one piece has no 

 bud in it, no plant will grow from it and he will have a 

 vacant hill. 



Most fruits do not " come true " from seed. One reason 

 why the grower uses buds of sugar cane, sweet potatoes, 

 and seedless oranges is because he cannot get seeds to 

 plant. There are advantages in using buds instead of 

 seed in some cases even when the seed can easily be 

 obtained. 



By planting the seed of the peach we do not get peaches 

 just like the one from which the seed came. The same 

 thing is true with apples, pears, strawberries, and most 

 of our fruits. Of such fruits we say, they do not " come 

 true " from the seed. 



Budding. The method of growing fruit like that on 

 the parent tree is by budding or grafting. If we grow 

 peach, apple, or other trees from buds, we may be quite 

 sure that the fruit on the young tree will be like its parent 

 and much like all other perfect fruit in the same variety. 

 If you take a hundred buds from one peach tree and cause 

 these to grow into a hundred young trees, they will all bear 

 fruit practically alike. In this case, the trees would be more 

 closely akin to each other than would be a hundred trees 

 grown from the seeds from one tree. This is so because a 



