32 PBOSliJKPINA. 



more to be considered its real root than the kernel of a 

 seed is. When you sow a pea, if you take it up in a day 

 or two, you will find the fibre below, which is root ; the 

 shoot above, which is plant ; and the pea as a now partly 

 exhausted storehouse, looking very woful, and like the 

 granaries of Paris after the fire. So, the round solid root 

 of a cyclamen, or the conical one which you know so well 

 as a carrot, are not properly roots, but permanent store- 

 houses, only the fibres that grow from them are roots. 

 Then there are other apparent roots which are not even 

 storehouses, but refuges; houses where the little plant 

 lives in its infancy, through winter and rough weather. 

 So that it will be best for you at once to limit your idea 

 of a root to this, that it is a group of growing fibres 

 which taste and suck what is good for the plant out of the 

 ground, and by their united strength hold it in its place ; 

 only remember the thick limbs of roots do not feed, but 

 only the fine fibres at the ends of them which are some- 

 thing between tongues and sponges, and while they absorb 

 moisture readily, are yet as particular about getting what 

 they think nice to eat as any dainty little boy or girl ; 

 looking for it everywhere, and turning angry and sulky if 

 they don't get it. 



10. But the root has, it seems to me, one more function, 

 the most important of all. I say, it seems to me, for 

 observe, what I have hitherto told you is all (I believe) 

 ascertained and admitted ; this that I am going to tell you 

 has not yet, as far as I know, been asserted by men of 



