HOW PLANTS ARE REARED. 
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HOW PLANTS ARE REARED.— II. 
1 . Some plants send up suckers, or young shoots, 
from stems that have rooted in the ground. In 
time the underground stem which links the sucker 
to the old plant dies, and then we have a separate 
plant, able to get its own living. In this way we 
obtain young plants from the banana, which seems 
so satisfied with this plan of giving new plants 
that it does not produce any seeds. 
2 . When we dig up a ginger plant we find that 
its root-stock — whence ‘ the hands ’ of ginger are 
obtained — bears a number of buds from which the 
leaf-shoots grow. If we cut off a piece with a bud 
on it, and plant it, the shoot grows just as well as 
it would from the whole root-stock. 
3. This is an easy way of rearing several kinds 
of plants, such, for instance, as cardamoms, arrow- 
root, guinea-grass, and many others. 
Sometimes a planter cuts off pieces from the 
stems or branches of a plant from which he wishes 
to rear new ones, taking care to cut each piece just 
below an ‘ eye ’ or bud. 
4. He sets the cuttings, as these are called, firmly 
in the ground; and soon, by giving out roots, they 
become growing plants. 
This is the way that the sugar-cane, bamboo, 
sweet-potato, and cassava, are generally treated. 
And it is a good plan; because we may be sure 
