THE STRUGGLE FOR LIGHT 



IF one thing more than another proclaims and boasts the 

 arrival of summer it is the solid mounds of the elm-trees 

 cloaked with leaves so thick that they give as little hint of 

 the structure beneath, as an Eskimo's dress of his anatomy. 

 If any one would make a picture of summer let him, suppos- 

 ing the feat possible, paint a great English elm, a Hunting- 

 donshire oak as it is called, standing solid and vivid against 

 one of the black thunder-clouds which June breeds. Suppose 

 presently that thunder-showers fall vertically, the ground 

 beneath the elm will be surprisingly dry, and it may be that 

 it will be encircled by a puddle of wet, a gutter round it ; 

 so successful are the little leaves, in their close ranks, at 

 drawing off the water. They serve a secondary purpose so. 

 If you study the way of a root in the ground, a way as 

 wonderful as that of a bird in the air, you will discover its 

 marvellous skill in taking a bee-line for dampness and water. 

 The little sensitive tips, the antennae of the rootlets, wheedle 

 their way past the stiffest obstructions to the patch of 

 moisture. They will make their way to this gutter round 

 the elm, and so roots and branches set up something of an 

 artistic balance. But this is not the first and foremost 

 purpose served by the screen of leaves. The clothed tree 



