PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY SEEDS. 61 



CHAPTER XL 

 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY SEEDS. 



NATURE provides abundantly for the reproduction of 

 plants, and the difficulty of multiplying by one method 

 is compensated by the ease with which it may be done by 

 another. Whenever we find a plant that takes root with 

 difficulty from " slips" or cuttings, in nine cases out of 

 ten we find that it seeds freely, and gives us a ready 

 means of increase. Thus we find that the much-admired 

 Centaureas, one kind of the "Dusty Millers" (the white- 

 leaved plants now so much used in massing and for 

 baskets) are exceedingly difficult and slow to root from 

 cuttings, but are readily raised from seeds. Our fine 

 strains of blotched Petunias are also troublesome as cut- 

 tings, but make plants quickly from seeds. The Cycla- 

 men, with its turnip-like stem or bulb, could only be 

 propagated by cutting it in pieces, disfiguring its shape, 

 and requiring years to form a circular bulb again ; but 

 here we have seed coming to our help, which germinate 

 freely, and make flowering plants in one year. The 

 Apple Geranium never affords proper cuttings from 

 which to make a plant, but it seeds freely, from which 

 splendid plants can be produced in a few months. So 

 the Primulas and Cinerarias, both slow and uncertain 

 from cuttings, seed freely. Echeveria metallica, one of 

 the beautiful plants of the Houseleek family, produces 

 no bud from the base of the leaf, as nearly all the other 

 species do; but, to make up, it seeds abundantly, and so 

 with hundreds of other plants to which our space will 

 not permit us to refer. There is no rule by which we 

 can designate what plants are best propagated by seeds, 

 and what by cuttings, experience being the only teacher, 

 and even the experience of a lifetime is too short for 



