60 



THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



water, as we all know, plants will wither and 

 die ; and the roots push downward and outward 

 in every direction in search of this necessary of 

 life for the leaves and flowers. 



In addition to 

 these two functions 

 of fixing the plant 

 and drinking water, 

 however, roots per- 

 form a third and 

 almost more impor- 

 tant one in absorbing 

 the other needful 

 materials of plant life 

 from the soil about 

 them. They drink, 

 not water alone, but 

 other things dis- 

 solved in it. 



What are these 

 other things? Well, 

 the answer to that 

 question will fairly 

 round off our first 

 rough idea of the 

 raw materials that 

 life is made up from. 



Fig. 7. ROOT OF THE CARROT. AT , 



Fig. 8. ROOT OF THE FRooBiT, We saw already that 

 FLOATING IN WATER. Fig. 9. plants eat carbon and 

 ROOT OF THE RADISH. The hydrogen from the 

 small hair-like ends drink in air anc j water . out o f 

 water and dissolved food-salts. tj>e ^ they manufac - 



ture a large number of compounds, such as 



FIG. 7. 



FIG. 8. 



FIG. 9. 



