58 THE WOOD. 



tree is, you observe, perfectly dry. Half-aii-hour's 

 hard rain would scarcely penetrate the thick shade 

 which shelters us, and moisten the soil about its 

 trunk. You would fancy, then, that in summer, 

 when trees are furnished with leaves, and when 

 they most need moisture, they have it least in their 

 power to obtain it. This is not at all the case, 

 for the leaves, as I have before told you, are able 

 to absorb moisture in great quantities, not only 

 from actual rain, but from the air ; and if you do 

 but think what a very large surface they present to 

 the atmosphere, you will readily see that the quan- 

 tity of nourishment which a tree loses by having 

 its roots sheltered from wet, is more than compen- 

 sated by the absorbing power of its leaves. Won- 

 derful to say too, the drops that after a long con- 

 tinued rain do reach the ground in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the trunk, do not at all tend to 

 its support. They penetrate into the ground and 

 are lost, or, if the ground be warm, soon evaporate, 

 but are not supped up by the rootlets ; and for this 

 very good reason ; Providence has not placed any 

 roots having the power of absorbing moisture, 

 where they could not be constantly employed. At 

 a short distance from us, where you see by the 

 motion of the grass and dead leaves lying on the 

 ground, that rain is falling, if you were to dig a 

 slight depth beneath the surface, you would find 

 the roots divided into an infinite number of small 

 fibres. These are the roots which supply the tree 

 with nourishment, and they all terminate either 

 immediately under the branches from which the 

 drops fall most abundantly, or just beyond them, 

 where the ground is fully exposed to the rain. 

 It is a general rule that the roots of a tree ex- 



