34 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM, 



burden until it is transmuted into blood, so the material 

 which the roots bring to the plant is mere dead food till 

 the cunning toil of a chlorophyll-holding cell has passed into 

 it the quickening sunbeam. Take away from a plant even 

 so much as a single green leaf, and you rob it of so much 

 of its very life blood." A warning this against the pre- 

 mature removal of leaves, as when leaves are taken from 

 the bulbs of our mangels before they have completed their 

 work of formation and accumulation. 



In this and other matters, however, the cultivator often 

 has to make a compromise, and act as is best for himself 

 under the particular circumstances of the time. It is not 

 the good of the plant that he seeks in the first instance, 

 but only in so far as it contributes to his own profit ; and 

 although in principle every injury needlessly inflicted on 

 a plant must in the long run be injurious, it may well be 

 and often is the case that the injury to the plant is com- 

 pensated for by other conditions, and that, in case of diffi- 

 culties on both sides, it is wisest to choose the least of two. 



The Stem and its Work. As the leaves, whatever their 

 form, are nothing but outgrowths from the stem, and as no 

 leaf exists except it be borne upon a stem, so it would have 

 been more in the natural order of things if mention had 

 been made of it before the leaves. As regards the nutrition 

 of the plant, however, the stem plays but a secondary part, 

 as compared either with the root or the leaves, and on this 

 account it may not inappropriately be considered after 

 them. 



Botanically, any part of the plant that produces leaves, 

 or the representatives of leaves, is considered to be stem. 

 The root, inasmuch as it bears neither scales nor leaves, is 



