136 FLOWER-GARDENING. 



stances fitted to the development of the latter, it will grow 

 and become a new plant. 



105. If this happens when the cutting is inserted in the 

 earth, the new plant is said by gardeners to be upon its own 

 bottom. 



106. But if it happens when the cutting is applied to the 

 dissevered end of another individual, called a stock, the roots 

 are insinuated into the tissue of the stock, and a plant is said 

 to be grafted, the cutting being called a scion. 



107. There is, therefore, little difference between cuttings 

 and scions, except that the former root into the earth, the 

 latter into another plant. 



108. But if a cutting of the same plant without a leaf-bud 

 upon it be placed in the same circumstances, it will not grow, 

 but will die. 



109. Unless its vital powers are sufficient to enable it to 

 develop an adventitious leaf-bud (119). 



110. A leaf-bud separated from the stem will also become a 

 new individual, if its vital energy is sufficiently powerful. 



111. And this whether it is planted in earth, into which 

 it roots like a cutting, or in a new individual, to which it 

 adheres and gTows like a scion. In the former case it is 

 called an eye, in the latter a hud. 



112. Every leaf-bud has, therefore, its own distinct system 

 of life and of growth. 



113. And as all the leaf-buds of an individual are exactly 

 alike, it follows that a plant is a collection of a great number 

 of distinct identical systems of life, and, consequently, a com- 

 pound individual. 



114. Regular leaf-buds being generated in the axillae of the 

 leaves, it is there that they are always to be sought. 



115. And if they cannot be discovered by ocular inspection, 

 it may nevertheless be ahvays inferred with confidence that 

 they exist in such situations, and may possibly be called from 

 their dormant state into life. 



116. Hence, wherever the scar of a leaf, or the remains of a 



