1 1903 



(^fTHE STUDY OF HORTICULTURE. 



BY J. C. BILAIR, 



Professor of Pomology and Chief in Horticulture, University of Illinois. 



ISSUED MONTHLY. 25 CENTS A YEAR. 



One cent a copy in quantities of ten or more. Send all orders to 

 C. M. Parker, Taylorville, 111. 



Third Semes, No. 5. Whole No. 29. 



Taylorville, Illinois, January, 1903. 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF PLANTS. 



If we had no way of compelling plants to reproduce 

 their kind, that is to multiply, there would be no nurseries 

 from which to buy young plants of any desired varieties. 

 Nature would manage things in her own way and if the 

 wind and the weather and other agencies happened to 

 scatter her seeds, where they could grow, that would be 

 so much the better, but it would be a very uncertain way 

 of getting one's plants. We could never be sure just 

 where the seeds had found a lodging place and started to 

 grow. So you see there may be ways of improving on 

 Nature's methods, that is, there may be methods more 

 suited to our ideas of push and enterprise. Man, there- 

 fore, collects the seeds which have been produced and 

 makes his seed bed just where he wants it. He puts the 

 seeds in it, and knows, that if he has obeyed the princi- 

 ples that govern seedage, he can go right to that bed 

 later on and find the young plants in a definite place and 

 not scattered about in Nature's unfenced gardens. If he 

 prefers he may perhaps take a portion of the parent plant 

 and produce a new plant without seed. 



These then are the two general methods which we 

 may employ when we wish to increase the number of our 

 plants. One method is called propagation by seeds, the 

 other propagation by division of the plant. The word 

 propagation is taken from the Latin language and in hor- 



