is very largely determined by the conditions under which the buds were formed the previous year. _Other bud characters._ =125.= It is easy to see the swelling of the buds in a room in winter. Secure branches of trees and shrubs, two to three feet long, and stand them in vases or jars, as you would flowers. Renew the water frequently and cut off the lower ends of the shoots occasionally. In a week or two the buds will begin to swell. Of red maple, peach, apricot, and other very early-flowering things, flowers may be obtained in ten to twenty days. =126.= The shape, size, and color of the winter buds are different in every kind of plant. By the buds alone botanists are often able to distinguish the kinds of plants. Even such similar plants as the different kinds of willows have good bud characters. =127.= Distinguish and draw fruit-buds of apple, pear, peach, plum, and other trees. If different kinds of maples grow in the vicinity, secure twigs of the red or swamp maple, and the soft or silver maple, and compare the buds with those of the sugar maple and Norway maple: What do you learn? [Illustration: FIG. 157.--BUDS OF THE HICKORY.] CHAPTER XVI BUD PROPAGATION We have learned (in Chap. VI) that plants propagate by means of seeds. _They also propagate by means of bud parts,--as rootstocks (rhizomes), roots, runners, layers, bulbs._ The pupil should determine how any plant in which he is interested naturally propagates itself (or spreads its kind). Determine this for raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, June-grass or other grass, nut-grass, water lily, May apple or mandrake, burdock, Irish potato, sweet potato, buckwheat, cotton, pea, corn, sugar-cane, wheat, rice. Plants may be _artificially propagated_ by similar means, as by _layers_, _cuttings_, and _grafts_. The last two we may discuss here. =Cuttings in General.=--_A bit of a plant stuck into the ground stands a chance of growing; and this bit is a_ =cutting=. Plants have preferences, however, as to the kind of a bit which shall be used, but _there is no way of telling what this preference is except by trying_. In some instances this preference has not been discovered, and we say that the plant cannot be propagated by cuttings. Most plants prefer that the cutting be made of the =soft= or =growing parts= (called “wood” by gardeners), of which the “slips” of geranium and coleus are examples. Others grow equally well from cuttings of the =hard= or =mature parts= or =wood=, as currant and grape; and in some instances this mature wood may be of roots, as in the blackberry. In some cases cuttings are made of tubers, as in the Irish potato (Fig. 60). Pupils should make cuttings now and then. If they can do nothing more, they can make cuttings of potato, as the farmer does; and they can plant them in a box in the window. [Illustration: FIG. 158.--GERANIUM CUTTING.] [Illustration: FIG. 159.--ROSE CUTTING.]