42 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



trees show that they are living things like us by having voluntary 

 motion and exerting power. 



Trees resemble us also as living things, and still more wonderfully, 

 perhaps, in their choice of food. They can take food only when it is in 

 a liquid or fluid state. They can not take any solid food, though the 

 particles be ever so small. Nor do all trees make use of the same things 

 for food. As they differ from one another in kind, so they require dif- 

 ferent kinds of food material in order to make them what they are. Or 

 they require the various articles of food, in different proportions one 

 from another. They seem to have their preferences, their likes and dis- 

 likes about food, very much as we do. So, when different kinds of trees 

 are growing together, each selects from the ground the food or the dif- 

 ferent kinds of food which will be most promotive of its growth. In this 

 respect the trees do even better than we do, for they never take what 

 is not good for them. The oak takes what will be best for it, and the 

 maple what will build it up as a maple, and so of every other tree, and 

 if the proper food does not happen to be where the tree is planted, 

 though there may be other food in abundance, it will not become 

 large and strong. There is hardly anything more wonderful than this 

 instinct of trees by which they choose their food so unerringly, and 

 the great effort which they seem to make sometimes in order to get 

 the food they want. While they can not move from place to place, as 

 as most animals can, because they are fixed to one spot, though some 

 of the lower order of plants move about as freely as animals, they 

 often send their roots long distances and over great obstacles in search 

 of what will nourish them. Darwin, speaking of the motion of the 

 root-tips of plants, says : 



"It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle, thus 

 endowed and having the power of directing the movements of the 

 adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the 

 brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving 

 impressions from the sense organs, and directing the several move- 

 ments." 1 



Such manifestations of life in the trees are very interesting. They 

 are enough to make us feel that they are like us in many respects and 

 to excite in us a sense of companionship with them, and we can hardly 

 wonder that some people have imagined that living creatures dwelt in 

 the trees and peopled the woods with nymphs, with dryads and hama- 

 dryads, or that in their superstition some have even worshipped trees. 

 If we had more of that fancy of the old Greeks, that when a tree was 

 wounded the nymph who dwelt in it was hurt or grieved, we should, 

 perhaps, treat the trees around us with more care and have a tenderer 

 feeling in respect to them. 



J Power of Movement in Plants. 



