XLIX 
THE STEPMOTHER TREE 
I SN’T IT ODD that man can persuade a strong, vigor¬ 
ous plant, with roots in the ground that it has taken 
years to develop, to adopt a spindling little seedling and 
to transfer all its vigor to its foster child! 
Here is the way it is done. A vigorous peach tree may 
be growing in the orchard. It is four years old, but pro¬ 
duces very ordinary peaches. Its owner, however, was 
last year traveling in the West, and when his train 
stopped at some way station, he bought a basket of 
peaches. They were the best peaches he had ever eaten; 
so he saved the seeds. He planted them, and the next 
summer they were growing slowly, as delicate little plants. 
This man knew that it would take six or eight years be¬ 
fore these plants would come into bearing. 
So he decided to give them stepmothers to help them 
along. He took one of them up with a ball of dirt about its 
roots. He went to the four-year-old peach tree and 
scraped out a little trough in its bark; he also scraped the 
outer bark from the side of the tiny seedling. Then he 
bound the wounds in these two plants firmly together. 
The older tree was getting plenty of food from its roots. 
The seedling was getting enough from its ball of dirt to 
keep it going for a while. But the trees grew together 
at the wound. Presently the seedling began to draw on 
the older tree for food. In the end it got all its vitality 
from this source. It began to grow faster than it would 
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