PROPAGATION WITHOUT SEEDS 



human offspring in whom little resemblance to either 

 parent, or any known ancestor, can be traced — those 

 profligates or geniuses, as the case may be, who startle 

 their relatives and sometimes stir the world. This 

 variation does not happen commonly, to be sure, with 

 the plants ordinarily dwelling in a garden, but there are 

 innumerable things with which it does happen occa- 

 sionally — usually highly bred varieties — and some with 

 which it invariably occurs, and which therefore posi- 

 tively cannot be reproduced from seed. 



The second advantage which plants produced by 

 layering have is a curious, anomalous combination of 

 youth and maturity — for a plant produced by layering 

 is as old as the parent plant, in one sense, yet as young 

 as its own newly formed roots and independent life, in 

 another. And in this combination there seems to dwell 

 all the lusty vigor of youthful growth and the luxuriant 

 productiveness of maturity. Indeed it is no unusual 

 thing to see, in a nursery, absurd little "shrubs" not more 

 than eight or ten inches high, bearing great trusses of 

 blossoms, quite in a grown-up fashion — stock, of course, 

 that has been grown from layers or cuttings — or possi- 

 bly grafts. Ordinarily a plant of such diminutive size 

 would be only a seedling of a year's growth, at least two 

 or three years removed from even the most precocious 

 attempt at producing blossoms. 



Nature resorts to layering with many species. The 

 sweet trailing arbutus of the woods is one example; the 

 noxious poison ivy is another; the strawberry of garden 

 and field, and the blackberry, whose canes lie along the 



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