86 THE LAWS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY 



The reader is again referred to the branch on page 31, 

 which we must remind him was copied from Nature. The 

 maximum of ramifying power on the main axis of this 

 branch appears to be about the middle, and is seen in the 

 first branch immediately below the bud-traces, marked '54, 

 or the fourth branch from the bottom. This branch is fif- 

 teen inches in length. The tenth branch, just under the 

 bud-trace marked 1857, exhibits the minimum of ramify^ 

 ing power, or a growth of only eight lines. It will be seen 

 that the dififerenee of growth amongst the other branches 

 in like manner bears a determinate relative connection 

 with their several positions on the main axis of the branch. 



It is very seldom, therefore, that all the axillary buds of 

 an axis are developed. Most frequently the majority of 

 them are suppressed, and this, too, according to a fixed 

 and regular law. In most cases, neither in the axilla of 

 the covering leaves, nor in that of the under leaves', vitally 

 active buds are produced, but only in the leaf-angles of the 

 upper and more powerfully developed part of the year's 

 shoot. Yet this rule is not without exceptions. In the 

 Judas tree {Oercis Canadensis), the maximum of productive 

 power is certainly in the under part of the shoot ; the leaf- 

 axilla have duplicate buds in the lower part of the shoot, 

 whilst toward its top the axilla of the leaves are sterile. 



Sometimes the buds which have thus -been rendered ru- 

 dimentary, retain a sufficient amount of vital activity to 

 carry them forward through the annually deposited layers 

 of wood and bark, so that they continue to maintain their 

 position, year after year, on the outside of the bark, where 

 they remain ready for action, in case the growth of the 

 other buds is checked by untimely frosts or other causes. 

 The disintegration of the bark, which is perpetually going 

 on in old stems, undoubtedly helps to keep them on the 

 surface. But in the majority of instances, the bud either 

 dies, and is detached from the shoot the first year, or it re- 

 tains its life, but continues totally inactive. In the latter 

 case, it necessarily sinks below the surface of the stem, and 

 becomes buried beneath the succeeding annual deposits of 

 bark and wood. Here it may remain for years, in a state 



