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 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 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.
“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 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 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.”