164 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



is needed to agree with the theory advanced. The upper stem contains four 

 times as much silica as the lower, and the chaff and husk about thirty-seven 

 times as much. To make the theory have mucli weight, we ought to find the 

 greatest amount of silica where there is the greatest strain. 



As before mentioned, all plants are composed of one or more cells. An ac- 

 tive, complete cell consists in a permanent cell wall lined with a delicate mem- 

 brane, and wi:hin these a semi-fluid called protoplasm, containing a vast 

 number of very small granules. In some parts of the cell may be seen a round 

 body called the nucleus, and upon this a nucleolus. 



Every fiber of cotton is a cell. These are sometimes two inches in length ; 

 but in woody tissue cells are not often over one-fifteenth of an inch long. 



Elder pith is made of large cells, but it would take 100 of them side by side to 

 reach an inch, and about 50 to reach an inch if placed end to end. In growing 

 plants these cells are multiplied with great rapidity, each one dividing into 

 two or four or more cells. In a puff-ball sometimes three or four millions of 

 cells are formed in an hour. 



In a very young plant of the highest classes the cells are much alike, but 

 as they grow older the cells become more diversified in form. 



In some of the simplest plants, as the yeast plant, red snow, many other 

 fungi and minute sea weeds, each plant is a microscopic cell. 



The plan of our higher plants is very simple, and consists of only root, stem, 

 and leaf in some form or other. 



If we examine a young apple tree a year old, we shall find it made up of a 

 lot of internodes and nodes placed above each other, a node at the top of an 

 internode bearing a leaf, which produces a bud just above it. This bud becomes 

 a branch essentially like every other branch on the tree. The trunk, at last, is 

 composed of the enlarged young stem. The Designer of all plants has vastly 

 added to our enjoyment by not making all leaves alike on every plant. 



Leaves appear as dry scales on buds, as thick fleshy masses on the bulb of a 

 lily, as thick heavy leaves on century plants, as pitchers or fly traps, as spines, 

 as tendrils. They are simple, as in the apple, or compound, as in the rose, pea, 

 and honey locust. The parts of flowers are nothing but leaves. 



Stems of plants exist in great variety. The runner of the strawberry, the 

 slender stem of the morning glory, the stout stem of the tree, the spine of a 

 hawthorn, the underground stem of quack grass and June grass, popularly 

 called roots, the thickened tuber of a potato covered with buds, the stumpy 

 cacti of Mexico, and the giant redwood of California, are good examples. 



ROOTS 



vary too. They are fibrous in wheat or fleshy in the peony and turnip. They 

 are annual or they may last for years. 



Eoots elongate at the end only, or rather the one-sixteenth of an inch bark 

 of the end. In our trees they expand in size by annual layers the same as the 

 trunks and branches. The soil has much to do with the length and number 

 of roots. In light, poor soil I find roots of June grass four feet below the 

 surface. 



People are apt to underestimate the length, amount and importance of the 

 roots of the finer grasses, wheat, oats, etc. Some roots of clover and Indian 

 corn are large enough to be seen by every one on slight examination. A young 

 wheat plants when pulled up, only shows a small part of its roots. They go 

 down often four to six feet. It needs very careful examination to show that 



