194 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
times in the home of a friend a geranium of par- 
ticular beauty, the like of which he would be glad to 
possess. The accommodating friend cuts a small piece 
from the geranium. This is stuck into poor but well- 
watered ground, develops roots, and eventually grows 
into a geranium stalk exactly like the one from which 
it came and of which it is in reality only a detached 
part. 
In similar fashion, if one wants a particular kind 
of apple, he never trusts to planting an apple seed. 
Going to the tree of the variety he desires, he takes 
from it a small twig provided with a bud and inserts 
this bud into a cleft made in the young branch of 
another apple tree. The young bud so inserted starts 
up into a new branch, resembling almost absolutely, 
not the tree which feeds it with sap, but the tree from 
which the bud was originally taken. 
When we wish a particular variety of potato we 
obtain pieces of the potato of the kind we desire. 
Each of these must contain an eye, which is a bud 
of the old potato. When the sprout appears the new 
plant will be practically identical in character with 
the plant from which the potato was taken. This sort 
of reproduction, in which a piece of the old parent 
grows up into the new generation, is called the asexual 
method. But one parent is concerned in the process, 
