REPRODUCTION 57 



we contribute in some way to the value of others. We 

 find that within ourselves there is something which forever 

 keeps us from being happy unless we are conscious of 

 sincere effort to help others. We find that the happiest 

 lives are those which are most devoted to the good of 

 other Hves. All this seems to be connected in some way 

 with the great law of nature that the individual shall be 

 devoted to the good of the race ; it seems a part of nature's 

 provision for reproduction. This truth that the highest 

 fulfillment of the individual is in what it does for the race 

 is evident in plant life as well as in human life. 



Plants reproduce asexually and sexually. Asexual re- 

 production is accomplished when a portion of the body 

 of one individual produces another individual. Sexual 

 reproduction is accomplished when, portions from the 

 bodies of two individuals having united, a new individual 

 is produced as a result of this union. 



Examples of asexual reproduction are familiar. Every 

 one who has helped make a garden is familiar with onion 

 sets and bulbs, with " seed " potatoes which are not seed, but 

 are the potatoes themselves, and with the cuttings whereby 

 grapevines and rose and berry bushes are propagated. 

 Even to those of you who live in large cities the bulbs 

 from which hyacinths and Chinese lilies grow are quite 

 familiar. New geranium plants are made by planting 

 slips, which are simply short pieces of stem bearing a bud 

 or two. The bright tulip beds of the parks are made by 

 planting bulbs late the fall before. All these are asexual 

 methods of plant reproduction. 



As to sex reproduction, the results of it are familiar in 

 seed plants though the process itself may not be. The seeds 

 themselves are results of a sex process. They contain a 



