CHAPTER XXXIV 



DIFFEBENT WAYS OF PROPAGATING 



SINCE our fruit-trees and ornamental plants, if 

 propagated by seed, revert sooner or later to 

 the wild type, how can they be propagated without 

 risk of degeneration? This must be done by means 

 of the buds instead of the seeds. Buds or branches 

 of a plant or tree must be transplanted from one 

 stock to another ; this is called grafting ; or they may 

 be planted directly in the soil by processes known 

 as layering and slipping. These are invaluable 

 methods, since they enable us to stabilize in the plant 

 the improvements attained after long years of labor, 

 and thus to profit by these improvements, which we 

 owe to our predecessors, instead of beginning all 

 over again a course of training that would demand 

 far more than a single life-time. 



"Layering, slipping, and grafting insure the faith- 

 ful reproduction of all the qualities of the parent 

 stock. As are the fruit, flowers, foliage of this par- 

 ent stock which has furnished the buds or slips for 

 transplanting, so will be the fruit, flowers, foliage of 

 the resulting plant or tree. Nothing will be added 

 to the qualities we wish to perpetuate, but on the 

 other hand nothing will be subtracted. To the 

 double flowers of the original from which came the 



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