CHAPTER XXXIII 



CULTIVATED PLANTS 



' f I iHREE modes of plant-propagation are in use 

 X among horticulturists, namely: layering, slip- 

 ping, and grafting. To get an adequate notion of 

 the great usefulness of these operations let us dwell 

 for a moment on the origin of our cultivated plants. 

 "You perhaps imagine that from the beginning of 

 time, in view of our need of food, the pear-tree was 

 eager to bear large fruit, plump and juicy ; that the 

 potato, just to accommodate us, stuffed its big tubers 

 with farinaceous matter ; that the cabbage, in its de- 

 sire to gratify us, conceived the idea of gathering 

 those beautiful white leaves into a compact head. 

 You imagine that wheat, pumpkins, carrots, grapes, 

 beets, and no one knows what besides, possessed with 

 a great interest in man, have always worked for him 

 of their own accord. You think that our grapes of 

 to-day are like those from which Noah extracted the 

 juice that made him drunk ; that wheat, ever since it 

 appeared on the earth, has never failed to yield its 

 annual harvest of grain ; that the beet and the pump- 

 kin had at the beginning of the world the plumpness 

 that makes them prized by us now. You imagine, 

 in short, that our food-plants came to us originally 



just as we have them now. Undeceive yourselves: 



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