CHAPTER XVI 



BUD PROPAGATION 



WE have learned (in Chap. VI) that plants propagate 

 by means of seeds. They also propagate by means of bud 

 parts, as rootstocks {rhizomes}, roots, runners, layers, bulbs. 

 The pupil should determine how any plant in which he is 

 interested naturally propagates itself (or spreads its kind). 

 Determine this for raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, June- 

 grass or other grass, nut-grass, water lily, May apple or 

 mandrake, burdock, Irish potato, sweet potato, buckwheat, 

 cotton, pea, corn, sugar-cane, wheat, rice. 



Plants may be artificially propagated by similar means, 

 as by layers, cuttings, and grafts. The last two we may 

 discuss here. 



Cuttings in General. A bit of a plant stuck into the 

 ground stands a chance of 'growing ; and this bit is a cutting. 

 Plants have preferences, however, as to the kind of a bit 

 which shall be used, but there is no way of telling what this 

 preference is except by trying. In some instances this prefer- 

 ence has not been discovered, and we say that the plant 

 cannot be propagated by cuttings. 



Most plants prefer that the cutting be made of the soft 

 or growing parts (called "wood" by gardeners), of which 

 the "slips" of geranium and coleus are examples. Others 

 grow equally well from cuttings of the hard or mature parts 

 or wood, as currant and grape; and in some instances this 

 mature wood may be of roots, as in the blackberry. In 

 some cases cuttings are made of tubers, as in the Irish 



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