42 LIFE ON THE FARM. 



solved in the water, and free air and light above. 



The largest and most beautiful kinds of plants, 

 however, cannot grow in this way because of the 

 liquid and unstable condition of water. Water 

 plants cannot raise their trunks and branches into 

 the air, as oaks and cedars do, because they have 

 no solid support for their roots. All they can do 

 is to lie flat upon the water and float. 



The soil, then, is a more ideal home for plants 

 than water is. In it they find food, and a firm 

 anchorage for their roots, enabling them to raise 

 their trunks high in the air, and spread their 

 branches, making forms of symmetry and beauty. 

 It is true that plants cannot move much when 

 rooted to one spot, but food and drink come to 

 them in ample quantities. Other conditions are 

 such that they are able to grow into larger forms. 



PLANTS HAVE LIFE AND MOTION. 



Plants are to be thought of as living beings. 

 They are just as much alive as animals, but, being 

 of different structure, they manifest life in a differ- 

 ent way. 



Though rooted to one spot, in most cases, yet 

 plants do move. They not only move in the space 

 in which they grow for a season, or number of 

 seasons, but move from place to place. They do 

 so for new food much the same as animals do. 

 Every breeze causes a part, or the whole, of a plant 

 to move. Its leaves, branches, and stem are not 



