IN THE FRONT YARD. 25 



trees seemed to have studied the matter and decided they 

 could not take the whole family through and so they 

 dropped over one-half of those long needles and had 

 strength enough to support the rest. In my yard was 

 this same variety of pine^ but the grove was fresh and 

 vio^orous and thev were holdino^ all their needles. I 

 wondered how it was. About 150 feet from them was 

 an irrigating ditch. I having occasion to dig near the 

 banks, I found a whole train of the roots drinking up 

 the water and sending it back to those trees. 



Often I have noticed fresh and vigorous looking trees 

 on the brow of rocky hills where there was no soil and 

 the wonder was how they could thrive so well. Going 

 down the hillside perhaps one to two hundred feet, I 

 saw where the soil had washed away; there the roots 

 were running down to the stream and pumping the water 

 up the hill to the trees. 



A neighbor had occasion to move some large cedars. 

 He did it well, exercising the greatest care. In a few 

 weeks he called me in and said his trees were dying. 

 I examined them. "''No, they are not, only they know 

 more than you do. With their root system partly de- 

 stroyed they know they cannot carry the foliage in full, 

 and so they are 'cutting the coat according to the cloth,' 

 and doing it, too, with the greatest nicety. You will 

 notice they are only dropping the foliage from the 

 tips and the branches just where you should have cat 

 them off to have the top proportionate with the root. 

 They are doing this, too, with mathematical precision.'' 

 The event proved the trees were right. They under- 



