THE FERMENT 453 



the algae, the lichens, that dissolved the rocks and 

 made of them mould in which fatter bacteria, and 

 trees, and men could flourish. So the world could be 

 obliterated, towers and pinnacles and all, by the 

 simple expedient of destroying the "broth" of the 

 soil. 



For ourselves, we cannot tell where the tree ends 

 and the soil begins. After the trunk there are the 

 roots, the root-hairs, the micorhiza, the fungi, that 

 are stationed on the roots, and the free fungi, that 

 mean just so much to the topmost leaf on the tree as the 

 leaves do themselves. In a cold frame we threw down 

 some lettuce seed. The ill-prepared soil sprouted little 

 patches of woolly mould. Rank enemy of man this, 

 the stuff that cakes cheese or jam left in a damp cup- 

 board ; the bloom of rotting autumn ; the very emblem 

 of decay. Then the lettuce seeds swelled and burst, 

 and there came out of them white roots, fringed thickly 

 with white hairs, undistinguishable from the horrid 

 mould of sour soil. But, on another morning, the 

 roots had buried themselves, and every lettuce plant 

 twinkled with two of the brightest green leaves. The 

 roots had seen to it, the roots that came from the 

 brown seeds, that perhaps were attacked by moulds 

 from the air, which they defeated and enslaved, and 

 made work for them in the soil. 



Even the life of the tree is a ferment, and goes on 

 for a while without assistance from the earth. The 

 sycamore in the brush-heap is sprouting just as much 

 as the tree from which it was cut in autumn. The 

 little catkins of the yew and the box have grown, not 

 so much by force of this year's awakening as in ac- 

 cordance with the programme laid down and provided 



