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What holds it down, do you suppose? 
Ah! Now you know what I am trying to get at. 
Its root is what holds it in place; and this holding of 
the plant in place is one of its uses. 
Its thread-like branches are so many fingers that are 
laying hold of the earth. Each little thread makes it 
just so much the more difficult to uproot the plant. 
I think you know already that another use of the 
root is to obtain nourishment for the plant. 
These thread-like roots, you notice, creep out on 
every side in their search for food and drink. The 
water they are able to suck in easily by means of tiny 
mouths, which we cannot see. But the plant needs 
a certain amount of earth food, which in its solid state 
could not slip down these root throats any more easily 
than a young baby could swallow a lump of sugar. 
Now, how is the plant to get this food, which it needs 
if it is to grow big and hearty? 
Suppose the doctor should tell your mother that a 
lump of sugar was necessary to the health of your tiny 
baby brother, what would she do about it? 
Would she put the great lump into the baby’s mouth ? 
You laugh at the very idea. Such a performance 
might choke the baby to death, you know quite well. 
Perhaps you think she would break the lump into 
small pieces, and try to make the baby swallow these ; 
-but even these small pieces might prove very dangerous 
to the little throat that had never held a solid morsel. 
“She would melt the sugar in water, then the baby 
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could swallow it,’ one of you exclaims. 
That is exactly what she would do. She would melt; 
