VEGETABLE LIFB. 17 



if we coated a man with paint, he too would die. The reason 

 of this is, the exhalations from the body through the pores are 

 stopped, and sent back, contrary to the healthy course of nature, 

 and the man dies. So it is with the tree. It is giving out 

 exhalations continually by its flattened cells, and should they 

 be checked, the tree is choked, and its life action ceases. 



Moreover, if we placed a man under a glass case with plenty 

 of food and water, and closed every aperture, he would speedily 

 die for want of fresh air. But, enclose a plant under the same, 

 and it thrives and grows well; thus showing that plants 

 neither breathe, nor inhale carbon, or anything else, from the 

 atmosphere. The flattened cells answer a similar purpose to 

 our pores, and are merely the channel of exit, for the exhalations 

 from the plant. 



We will now explain the force which naturally spreads the 

 roots and branches. 



Suppose we again take the magnetized bar of steel, and the 

 filings. If we dip both ends into the filings, we have a perfect 

 representation of a tree in winter, with the roots at the one end, 

 and the bare branches at the other. No two roots in a tree are 

 observed to go together, nor any two branches. Even the 

 smallest twigs are observed to shoot out in places where no 

 others are growing. So it is with the filings. Each hair of 

 steel dust is as distinct from another as needles would be. The 

 reason of this is as already explained, that similar poles repel 

 each other. Roots and branches of the same tree, therefore, repel 

 each other, because they are of the same poles. A plant or tree 

 consequently must have polarity, and this would show us, if we 

 did not know from other sources > that a tree i by nature a 

 magnet. 



