DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROPAGATING

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CHAPTER XXXIV. DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROPAGATING

“Since our fruit-trees and ornamental plants, if propagated by seed, revert sooner or later to the wild type, how can they be propagated without risk of degeneration? This must be done by means of the buds instead of the seeds. Buds or branches of a plant or tree must be transplanted from one stock to another; this is called grafting; or they may be planted directly in the soil by processes known as layering and slipping. These are invaluable methods, since they enable us to stabilize in the plant the improvements attained after long years of labor, and thus to profit by these improvements, which we owe to our predecessors, instead of beginning all over again a course of training that would demand far more than a single life-time.

“Layering, slipping, and grafting insure the faithful reproduction of all the qualities of the parent stock. As are the fruit, flowers, foliage of this parent stock which has furnished the buds or slips for transplanting, so will be the fruit, flowers, foliage of the resulting plant or tree. Nothing will be added to the qualities we wish to perpetuate, but on the other hand nothing will be subtracted. To the double flowers of the original from which came the [166]layer, the slip, or the graft, will correspond the double flowers of the plant developing from this layer, slip, or graft: the same shade of coloring will be reproduced, and the fruit will have the same size, savor, and sweetness. The slightest peculiarity which, for unknown reasons, appears in a plant grown from the seed, and which sometimes is found only on a single branch, as the indented outline of the leaves or the variegation of the blossoms, is reproduced with minute accuracy if the graft, slip, or layer is taken from the branch having this modification. By this means horticulture is daily enriching itself with double flowers or a new shade, or with fruit remarkable for its size, its early or late ripening, its juicy flesh, its more pronounced aroma. Without the help of graft and slip these fortunate accidents, occurring but once and no one knows how, would lead to no further profit after the death of the plant thus favored by chance; and horticulture would find itself compelled to repeat over and over again its attempts to bring about improvements which, almost as soon as effected, would invariably be lost for want of means to fix them and render them permanent.

“If history had preserved the record, what long and painful efforts to develop our various cultivated plants from worthless seedlings should we not read there! Just think of what a happy inspiration it must have taken to select exactly the kind of vegetable or other plant susceptible of improvement, what patient experimental attempts to subject it to [167]cultivation, what wearisome labor to improve its quality from one year to another, what care to prevent its degenerating and to hand it down to posterity in perfect condition. Think of all this and you will see how the smallest fruit, the smallest vegetable, represents more than the toil of him who has raised it in his garden. It represents, perhaps, the accumulated effort of a hundred generations, an effort indispensable if we are to have a succulent pot-herb as the descendant of a worthless weed. We live on the fruit and vegetables created by our predecessors; we live on the labor, strength, ideas of the past. May the future in its turn live on our strength both of arm and thought! So shall we worthily fulfill our mission.

“It was not chance that gave man the idea of layering, slipping, and grafting, but rather the thoughtful observation of nature’s methods all about him. He who was first, for example, to note how the strawberry grows and multiplies, received the first lesson in layering. Let us in our turn examine this curious process.

Strawberry Runner

“From the parent stock of the strawberry vine a number of runners start out, long, slender, and creeping on the ground. These runners are also known as stolons or creeping suckers. After reaching a certain distance they expand at the end into a little tuft which takes root in the ground and is soon self-supporting. The new tuft of the strawberry vine, as soon as strong enough, in its turn sends out long runners which follow the example of the first [168]ones; that is to say, they creep along the ground, end each in a rosette of leaves, and take root. The picture shows us a first tuft, more vigorous than the others. From the axil of one of its leaves starts a runner whose terminal bud has developed into a small plant already provided with roots of some vigor. A second runner sprung from this plant bears a third rosette whose leaves are beginning to unfold. After sending out an indefinite number of similar runners the mother plant finds herself surrounded with young suckers, established here and there, as many as the season and the nature of the soil permit. At first these suckers are attached to the mother plant by the runners, and sap flows from the old plant to the young ones; but sooner or later there is a severance of ties, the runners dry up and are henceforward useless, and each offshoot, properly rooted, becomes a separate strawberry vine. Here we find, without any of man’s ingenuity or skill, all the details of layering; and it was undoubtedly the natural process that suggested the artificial [169]method. A long branch bends down to the ground, takes root there, and then becomes detached from the parent stock by the death or destruction of the connecting part. The horticulturist lays a long shoot in the ground, waits until it sends down adventitious roots, and finally severs the connection with his pruning-shears. That is layering.”

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