ROOTS I Q 



hole in it and stick it on to the small end of the egg 

 so that the hole in the candle comes over the hole in 

 the egg. Heat the wire, and with it solder the piece 

 of candle more firmly to the egg, making a water- 

 tight joint. Place the glass tube in the hole in the 

 piece of candle, pushing it down till it touches the 

 egg. Then, with the heated wire, solder the tube 

 firmly in place. Now run the wire down the tube 

 and break the skin of the egg just under the end of 

 the tube. Fill the bottle with water till it overflows, 

 and set the egg on the bottle, the large end in con- 

 tact with the water (Fig. 14). In an hour or so the 

 contents of the egg will be seen rising in the glass 

 tube. This happens because the water is making its 

 way by osmose into the egg through the skin, which 

 has no openings, so far as can be discovered. If the 

 bottle is kept supplied with water as fast as it is 

 taken up by the egg, almost the entire contents of the 

 egg will be forced out of the tube. In this way 

 water in which plant food is dissolved enters the 

 slender root hairs and rises through the plant. 



Experiment. This process of osmose may also be 

 shown as follows (Fig. 15) : Remove the shell from 

 the large end of an egg without breaking the skin, 

 break a hole in the small end of the egg and empty 

 out the contents of the egg; rinse the shell with 

 water. Fill a wide-mouthed bottle with water col- 

 ored with a few drops of red ink. Fill the egg-shell 

 partly full of clear water and set it on the bottle of 

 colored water. Colored water will gradually pass 

 through the membrane of the egg and color the wa- 



