CHAPTER VII 



THE SEEDLING-INARCH AND NURSE-PLANT 

 METHODS OF PLANT PROPAGATION 



For the matter which follows, we are indebted to the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., our material be- 

 ing extracted from Bulletin No. 202, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 by Geo. W. Oliver. In an introductory note therein, David 

 Fairchild, the agricultural explorer, in charge of the depart- 

 ment of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, says: 



"One of the most important factors in the creation of a plant 

 industry which depends upon a perennial species is the rapid 

 propagation of the plant. The possibility of bringing through 

 the mails from any part of the world a few seeds of some rare 

 plant is of relatively little moment if it is not backed up by 

 adequate methods of quick reproduction from these few seeds, 

 through asexual propagation, in order to produce large num- 

 bers of individuals for experimental trial. One of the greatest 

 drawbacks of horticulture is the time required to test a new 

 variety originated from seed, and any method which shortens 

 the time required to make such tests must appeal to everyone, 

 whether an originator of new varieties or a tester of them, as of 

 the greatest value. 



"The seedling-inarch method which has been worked out 

 by Mr. Oliver, it is believed, is destined to prove of the greatest 

 importance not only in connection with the propagation of the 

 tropical and subtropical fruits and ornamental plants with which 

 this Bulletin particularly deals (because it has been in his stud- 

 ies with them that he has come to realize its value), but in a 

 very wide range of plant industries in which the early fruiting 



