R. n. KELLOGO S GREAT CROPS OF 
The Wm. Belt, 
take cuttings and strawberry runners from these 
plants and cultivate carefully and you will get a 
host of bushes and strawberry plants with very 
litt le fr uit, and that inferior in quality. 
Wliy is this?— Because through the excessive 
seminal effort of pollen secretion they become im- 
potent or in other words their breeding powers 
being overtaxed are destroyed and then they throw 
their energies to the growth of wood and runners. 
Let me repeat. Fruit production is a sexual act. 
Fruit forms as a substance for the seeds to grow in 
and the development of fruit depends entirely on 
the seminal vigor of the plant and large crops of 
fine fruit cannot be grown on trees, bushes or 
plants which are weakened in fruit production. 
Is not rich soil and extra good tillage 
the true basis of large crops of fine fruit?— 
These are absolutely necessary. No one can expect 
plants to respond in fine fruit when they are over- 
run with weeds and have little plant food in the 
soil, but note carefully the fact that exhausted 
plants cannot be forced into fruitage in this way. 
How are "cheap" plants grown?— These 
exhausted plants throw all their energies to making 
runners. They vnll produce several times as 
many plants as those trained to produce fruit and 
hence growers are able to offer them for little more 
than the cost of digging and packing. 
Will not exhausted plants make large 
roots and leaves? — Certainly they will. The 
trouble is, being exhausted in seed bearing they 
will not form fruit buds and the more you manure 
and cultivate the larger your plants will grow but 
they will make runners instead of bearing fruit. 
Do the same laws of nature hold good in 
breeding plants which obtain in breeding 
animals? — When breeding sexually they do in all 
particulars. All plants propagated by seeds have a 
father and mother just the same as an animal. 
The seeds are nothing but the eggs of the plant and 
contain the life germ the .same as the bud, but 
plants may be propagated without the aid of sexes 
by dividing the protoplasm in the nodes and inter- 
nodes of the wood in which variations are less. 
Why is it our new varieties are so largely 
seedlings?— We know that many of our best 
varieties are bud sports or variations. Near- 
ly all are found by accident here and there. 
Often a single plant in an old bed attracts attention 
or in some fence corner or out of the way place. 
Seedlings vary much more because they have a 
father and mother and get two parental impressions 
and may take a greater impress from the one than 
the other, thus in some families of children they 
all resemble the father, in others they look more 
like the mother and sometimes like the grand- 
parents and in some instances have no family 
resemblance. 
Is it difficult to get valuable varieties 
through seedlings? — Ves, it is very difficult; the 
variations are so great that out of twenty thousand 
seedlings you might not get one worthy of intro- 
duction for general cultivation. We never get two 
seedlings exactly alike. While we can get new 
varieties quicker iu that way, yet they are not 
reliable because they vary so greatly from the 
desired tj^pe. When we find a valuable seedling, 
on account of these great variations we multiply it 
by its nmners or buds as in layering, grafting, etc., 
until their characteristics are fixed by continuously 
selecting the best, throwing out the weak ones and 
encouraging the development of good qualities by 
high tillage and restriction. In other words treat- 
ing them by "physical culture." 
Why is it you can multiply a plant by 
cutting it in pieces as scions, runners, etc.? 
— Because the protoplasm or life principle is in all 
the nodes and internodes throughout the branches 
where it remains dormant until excited into active 
life by cutting them apart and giving them nour- 
ishment as by making cuttings, budding, grafting, 
etc. 
What is Protoplasm? — It is a jelly like sub- 
stance in which the principle of life resides. Scien- 
tists have proven that the protoplasm of plants is 
exactly the same as that of animals. The straw- 
berry plant nmltiplies itself by this protoplasm 
being located in the nodes of the runners which is 
the same as the nodes in the tree or bush. It is the 
same potential life germ found in the seeds. The 
blackberry and red raspberry form these nodes in 
the roots so that we can cut the roots up and get a 
plant from each piece. The black raspberry and 
dewberry form them in the tips of the canes which 
we bury in the ground and the germ develops into 
a plant the same as if it were a seed. 
The Bubach. 
Why is it that plants propagated by buds 
do not vary so much as those grown from 
seeds? — Because, figuratively speaking they 
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