Part 21 (2/2)

As you round is lifted up by its first little root in its effort to poke its nose into the soil But Natureseeds up They are covered by the castings of the earthwor birds Soround is very dry and others are washed into the on the surface are covered by the washi+ngs of the rain Then co just back of the tip, are thousands of root-hairs, as fine as down These get food from the soil They soon disappear fro food itself and puts in all its tiathered by the finer and younger roots This is why plants are so apt to wilt if you aren't careful when transplanting theet broken off For the sahed deeply The fine roots reach out between the rows and the ploughshare would cut them off

II MR ROOT'S PRESENCE OF MIND

All these things and more the roots do in their daily work--in the ordinary course of business And it's wonderful enough Don't you think so? But there are even stranger things to tell; things that would als we call ”presence ofjust what to do when so for; when the house takes fire, for example, or the baby upsets the ink

[Illustration: THREE SCHOOLS OF STRATEGY]

A ROOT'S WAY OF CROSSING A ROAD

Take the case of tree roots crossing a country road for a drink of water They do it just as you or I would, I'll be bound Just suppose you and I were roots of a big tree that wanted to reach the moist bank of a streao over the top, and the road-bed is so hard we can't go straight through on our natural level so we'll just stoop down and go under, won't we? That's exactly what the roots do They dip down until they get under the hard-packed soil, and then up they coain on the other side and into the moist bank they started for

The roots of each kind of plant or tree have their natural level; that's one reason, as we knohy so rass, trees, bushes, and things--get on so well together in the fields and woods The tree roots that we have just seen crossing the road only went down below their natural level because they had to, as if the tip said:

”This soil is too hard We can never get through Bend down! Bend down!”

So the roots bent down until they ca up toward their natural level, and so it was at their natural level they came out on the other side

A ROOT'S STRANGE ADVENTURE WITH A SHOE

But here's an example of ”presence of ood-sized root, working along through the soil, like Little Brother Mole, to earn its board and keep, caot buried in the soil In the sole were a lot of holes where the stitches used to be The root divided into many parts, and h the stitch holes Then, coether and travelled on, side by side!

[Illustration: HOW THE RAG BABIES TELL THE FORTUNE OF THE SEED CORN

In what is popularly called ”the Rag Baby Test” the seed corn is placed on squaresto the numbered ears Then they are rolled up in one of those s until they sprout]

Isn't that a story for you? But there's no accounting for it As we have seen, the es to turn round and round and away froht and so on, but what kind of machinery or process is it that could tell the root if it would split up into little threads it could get through the stitch holes in that old boot? You can't iht hoas done But it's all true We'll find the story and a lot of other things about the ways of roots in one of the books we'll get acquainted e come to the ”Hide and Seek”

[Illustration: _International Harvester Company_

THIS IS THE ANSWER

The seed from Ear No 12 came out beautifully, didn't it? That from Ear No 13 looks as if they were superstitious in Corn Land; but of course it was the fault of the seed and not of the nu; e have called ”presence of mind,” resourcefulness, invention This exa, if possible, because, for one thing, it is a case where roots stillfor its life on a stony mountain cliff Maeterlinck tells about it in his picturesque and dramatic style The subject--the hero, as it were--of this story was a laurel-tree growing on some cliff above a chasm at the bottom of which ran a mountain torrent

”It was easy to see in its twisted and, so to say, writhing trunk, the whole dra stem had started fro toward the sky, bent down over the gulf It was obliged, therefore, notwithstanding the weight of its branches, stubbornly to bend its disconcerted trunk into the form of an elbow close to the rock, and thus, like a swimmer who throws back his head, by ht up into the sky”

This bent arrew so that it swelled out in knots and cords, likea terrific burden But the strain finally proved too an to crack at the elbow and decay set in

”The leafy donawed deeper into the tragic ar I know not what order of instinct, two stout roots, issuing frorew out and ranite wall”

As if the roots, naturally so afraid of light, had heard a frantic call for help and, regardless of everything, had come to the rescue

To be sure, certain roots--the prop-roots of corn-stalks, for instance, as you have noticed--habitually reach froround down into the soil, and serve to brace the tall ste in the winds, but trees usually have no such roots and no such habits Yet, here a tree seems suddenly to have learned, so is done But how did it learn it? Did the brownies or the gnoo everywhere and see everything? It ht have been the same wind sprites that carry the seeds of the laurel and the pine so far up the ht have been the dryads, those beautiful creatures of the wood the Greeks knew so much about