Soil-Binders 43 



still in the fruit and on the bough, also sends out branches 

 and roots, sometimes long enough to touch the ground, 

 before it falls. The fruit-roots, branch-roots, and 

 stems, together form a tough, closely woven network, 

 in which the mud of the river is caught and entangled, 

 and converted into soHd, or something like sohd, land, 

 very much more quickly than it would be without their 

 help. 



In Holland the people have taken a leaf out of nature's 

 book, and carefully plant the sea-dikes, on which the very 

 existence of their land depends, with the ''sharp rush," 

 whose multitude of roots mat together near the surface, 

 besides striking deep into the soil. 



The growth of the sea-reed is even more remarkable. 

 It will grow in the very driest soil, and has been planted 

 in the Hebrides to cure sand-drift. Its runners are often 

 as much as twenty feet long, and so tough and strong 

 that they have been used for rope-making. 



Some quite fragile-looking roots are indeed remarkably 

 tough, and capable of resisting an immense strain without 

 breaking. The roots of the Lucerne clover are said to be 

 often as strong as those of an ash-tree, though, of course, 

 very much finer, and looking much weaker; and they have 

 at times given unmistakable proof of their strength, not 

 merely by resisting the advance of the plowshare, but by 

 actually breaking it. 



On mountain slopes, too, the roots of trees and brush- 

 wood serve to keep in its place the soil which must else 

 slip down by its own weight, even if there were no rain to 

 wash or wind to blow it. And where people have been 

 so short-sighted as to cut down mountain forests, there 

 they have had to lament not merely the ruin, but the 



