CHAPTER XIV 



THE PROPAGATION OF PLANTS 



To propagate plants is to cause them to multiply, 

 spread or continue by natural generation or other means, 

 as a species or variety. In Nature, we see each plant, 

 from the tiny one that causes the mold on bread to the 



gigantic oak of the forest 

 producing its seeds or spores 

 that the species may be con- 

 tinued. 



Man has selected from among 

 these wild plants those which 

 are adapted to his use and has 

 cultivated and improved them 

 until it is often with difficulty 

 that we recognize the wild 

 type from which they came. 

 Nor has man been content with only those species 

 which he has found growing in his own immediate coun- 

 try. He has — and this is especially true of the American 

 through the work of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture — searched the uttermost parts of the earth 

 for new plants and seeds to be introduced into his own 

 native land.' 



Fig. 42. — The Bismarck apple 

 and its wild parents. 



96. How Plants are propagated. - 

 agated in three ways : 



122 



•Plants are prop- 



