WEST MICHIGAN FRUIT GROWERS' SOCIETY. 169 



in the tree aad root, start into life the germs in opposite directions to 

 begin another season's round, when the upflow of sap begins. 



AH supplies of food for tree or plant are taken up by the roots in liquid 

 form. Every particle of dead vegetable matter hastens toward decay and 

 decomposition when fallen to the earth, and the soluble parts are washed into 

 the soil by the descending rains, as fast as they reach the stage when this be- 

 comes possible. About half the bulk and more than half the weight of the 

 plant thus returns as plant food again while the woody fiber becomes humus, 

 to give character and color to the soil, and to act as a trap to catch and hold 

 fertility, until the fibrous root of some plant is fixed upon it to extract this 

 fertile sap from the soil. 



"The oak tree, struggling with the blast, 



Devours its father tree. 

 And sheds its leaves and drops its mast, 



That more may be." 



EELATtON BETWEEN" ROOTS AND BRANCHES. 



It is thought by some that one side of a tree is supplied by the roots on that 

 side, or that each root supports its equivalent in the top, instead of furnishing 

 its supply of sap to the general food for the good of all alike. I do not care 

 to express an opinion on this point, as the examples are so contradictory 

 that the proofs for either hypothesis are hard to obtain. That the root sustains 

 a subordinate relation to the branch is proved by the changed character of the 

 root to correspond with the variety in root-grafted trees. Cut a seedling root 

 in two parts and insert a crab scion in one and a King in the other, and when 

 they are two years old the original root which furnished the fiber to start the 

 scion into growth, will have entirely disappeared, and the young tree will 

 have roots identical with the parent tree from which the scions were cut, and 

 the roots of every tree of the same variety will be exactly alike, so far as color, 

 -character, and texture are concerned. 



There is a difference of opinion whether roots have the power of selecting 

 from the earth the elements of which plants and trees are composed in the 

 proportions which are always found in plants of the same order. The weight of 

 evidence, however, bears heavily on the affirmative side of the question. Those 

 who argue against selection assert that the surplus of each element, carried up 

 in solution, is returned by the downward flow of sap, and is discharged again 

 into the soil as excretory matter. There were many interesting questions 

 hinging upon this voluntary or involuntary power of roots, which the limits 

 of my paper will not allow me to discuss. It is sufiicient, practically, for the 

 fruit grower to know that the roots of his peach trees will always assort the 

 juices that enter into the perfect peach, and that potatoes will still insist upon 

 developing beneath the soil. His flowering shrubs will never exchange products 

 with the orchard, and although, with all his philosophy, he can not tell why 

 the same handful of earth should yield so varied a bounty, yet his faith will 

 look unquestioningly for this ever recurring miracle. 



"Strange that this lifeless soil gives vine, flower, tree. 

 Color and shape and character, fragrance too; 

 That the timber that builds the house, the ship for the sea, 

 ' Up through this root its strength and its toughness drew. 

 That the cocoa among the palms should suck its milk 

 From the drv dust, while dates from the self-same soil 



