198 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 



As far as physiology can explain the operation of 

 propagation by cuttings, it appears that roots are 

 formed by the action of leaves ; that branches are de- 

 veloped from the buds ; and that the buds are main- 

 tained by the suitable aliment stored up in the stem. 

 Every thing beyond this seems to be connected with 

 specific constitutional powers, of which science can 

 give no explanation. 



In considering what conditions are most favourable 

 to the maintenance of a cutting in the state required, 

 in order to enable it to become a young plant, it will 

 be most convenient, in the first place, to- examine the 

 rationale of some one method which is known to be 

 successful. For this purpose, the following detail, by 



trees of the East Indies, and which grows in the greatest perfection 

 about Malacca, affording, by its elegant wide-expanding boughs, 

 and thick-spreading pinnated leaves, a shade equally delightful 

 with the far-famed Tamarind tree, is readily propagated by cuttings 

 of all sizes, if planted even after the pieces have been cut for many 

 months, notwithstanding they appear quite dry, and fit only for the 

 fire. I have witnessed some of three, four, five, six, and seven 

 inches in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long, come to be fine trees 

 in a few years. While watching the transformation of the log into 

 the tree, I have been able to trace the progress of the radicles from 

 the buds, which began to shoot from the upper part of the stump a 

 few days after it had been placed in the ground, and marked their 

 progress till they reached the earth. By elevating the bark, minute 

 fibres are seen to descend contemporaneously as the bud shoots into 

 a branch. In a few weeks these are seen to interlace each other. 

 In less than two years the living fibrous system is complete ; in five 

 years no vestige of its log origin can be perceived; its diameter 

 and height are doubled, and the tree is in all respects as elegant 

 and beautiful as if it had been produced from seed." [Sort. Tram., 

 iv. 226.) 



