Buds are the beginnings of leaves, branches, or flowers. They are tender babies, and need to be cradled and blanketed. Here is a tough old shagbark-tree. In the coziest manner possible the next year's buds are tucked away under gummy and thick scaly leaves. Frost and icy wind cannot injure them. Many forest trees protect their buds with scales. A locust and buttonwood form their new buds under the hollow stem base of the old leaf. Dr. Gray likens the old leaf to a "candle-extinguisher." You have only to pull off a locust leaf any day in summer to see next year's bud. It grows under the old leaf till it has strength to take care of itself when the leaf falls in autumn.
We cannot tell at first, and from the outside, just what the bud is going to produce. Some buds contain a whole branch, with all its leaves, in embryo, curled up and tucked into a very small space. Often a flower bud grows beside a leaf bud, and it may come out first in spring. Some of the maples do that. The forsythia is a shrub which is covered with yellow flowers in the early spring before a leaf appears on the bush.
Some plants protect their buds by keeping them underground. Plants have stems running along or under the surface as well as straight up. The horizontal stems are root-stocks. The pretty prince's-pine, the sour-leaved wood-sorrel, peppermint, and indeed many of the common flowers, have a horizontal main stem, with ascending branches. One of the most curious is the Solomon's-seal. A new leaf is sent up every year from the tip end of the root-stock, and the old, dropping off, leaves a sear, which is the "seal." Buds formed on these underground stems are protected from too great changes of temperature by a few inches of soil. Those buds that lie on the surface must be protected by the dead leaves which fall in autumn. They, the buds, are the real "babes in the wood," you see.
Our baby bud, just like children, must have nourishment as well as protection in order to grow in spring. This is provided by the thick leaves that cover, or by the stem, or in some other way. The story of an Irish potato is the most curious of them all. The potato is a collection of underground buds and starch. The eyes of potatoes are true buds, and each one can make a new plant. Have you ever seen the potatoes sprouting in the cellar? Back of the eye is a scale, which is a sort of leaf. The place for buds is just within the old leaf—that is, in the axil, or space between the leaf and stem on the upper side. So that potato buds are axillary. When our cooks pare potatoes for boiling they have to dig these buds out with a sharp-pointed knife. But they are a boon to the farmer. If he had to plant seed of potatoes he would wait two years for his crop. But now he cuts a potato in pieces, taking care to leave an eye on every piece. It would be wasteful to plant a whole potato with several buds in one hill. Plenty of starch, the nourishment necessary for the growing bud, is in one potato for all of its buds.
Propagation by buds and shoots is very common. More vegetation appears from buds than from seeds, although most plants are none the less anxious to produce seeds. They provide in both ways for the perpetuation of their species.
It is for this reason that the spring, once started, comes on so rapidly. One week there are only bare trees and brown fields; the next, everything is in leaf and bloom. Every leaf of a horse-chestnut-tree seems to grow an inch in a single night. The buds are all ready just as soon as mild weather sets the sap running, and they almost jump into active life.
[THE EDUCATED GOOSE.]
hat do you think, mamma," said Johnny, the other day. "I have just read a real funny story in the paper, and it is all about a goose."