THE RELATION OF FOLIAGE TO FRUIT 43 



THE RELATION OF FOLIAGE TO FRUIT 



By N. S. PLATT 



LEAVES are the lungs of plants, and as the lungs in 

 the human body revitalize the blood, fitting it to re 

 pair the waste of the system and to build up new 

 portions of it, so the leaves of plants, through the action 

 of air and sunshine, prepare or change the sap that comes 

 up from the roots, making it ready to form wood, flower, 

 leaf, fruit or flavor, and enabling the plant or tree to perfect 

 its natural habit to the fullest degree when other necessary 

 things are also supplied. 



We see disastrous results very quickly when foliage is 

 either entirely or largely destroyed. Our elm trees — so 

 vigorous, so strong that up to 1890 one was seldom known 

 to die — now yield to three or four seasons of being denuded 

 by the elm-leaf beetle. A spotted leaf-blight of quince and 

 European plum trees, that causes the leaves to fall by Septem- 

 ber I, disables the trees for one or two years and frequently 

 causes their death. We all know how damaging is any 

 blight on annual plants, like potatoes or melons, when the 

 leaves are destroyed or impaired before their mission is com- 

 pleted. The most vicious of weeds may be eradicated, no 

 matter how strong the roots, by simply preventing the 

 leaves from expanding in the air. 



There is an intimate relation between the leaves and the 

 roots of a plant or tree. The roots cannot long carry on 

 their functions without the leaves to aid them, and vice versa. 

 Last summer was an unusually wet one, and young roots 

 of many trees were apparently rotted by being covered 

 with water so much during the season of growth. This 

 was shown, I think, by the death of the trees, or portions 

 of them, before the season ended, and by the premature 

 coloring and falling of the foliage. 



That veteran gardener and horticulturist, Thomas Meehan, 

 has claimed that the connection between leaves and roots 

 is so intimate that when a portion of the top of a tree is 

 cut away a portion of the roots die. An example which 

 would seem to corroborate this theory has come under my 



