THE BAKLEY CROP. Ill 



rather to ramify and distribute themselves laterally 

 through the surface soil than, to dip downwards in search 

 of food in the subsoil. But although their extent is far 

 less than the wheat roots, they appear to be fully com- 

 pensated by an arrangement of root -fibres, which has 

 not been noticed in the wheat, and which enables them 

 by this great increase to the number of mouths, so to 

 term them, to abstract from the soil a larger amount of 

 mineral food in a given time, than the more extended 

 roots of the wheat plant are called upon to do. 



In order to understand more clearly this beautiful 

 arrangement, which probably exists in all roots, though 

 more fully developed in some (quick feeders, for instance) 

 than in others, we cannot do better than follow Dr. 

 Lindley, who in a recent article, 1 which will amply repay 

 perusal, tells us " that it is not only on account of the 

 extreme delicacy and importance of their points that roots 

 require to be handled with the utmost delicacy. Another 

 microscopical fact has been ascertained within the last few 

 years, and is of hardly less interest. When you look with 

 the naked eye at the skin of a young root-fibre, nothing 

 is seen except an apparently level uninterrupted surface ; 

 but in many cases there are present infinite multitudes of 

 little hairs, through which food is imbibed : they are the 

 mouths of the root. Through their agency the sucking 

 or feeding power of the root- skin is very considerably 

 augmented: to remove them is to diminish or destroy 

 that power. But they are so delicate that any ungentle 

 treatment must destroy them/' In the words of Professor 

 Henfrey, " they are mostly invisible to the naked eye, and 

 their presence is chiefly betrayed by the adhesion of the 

 soil to them. When young roots are carefully washed, 

 and placed under a magnifying-glass, their fibrils (root- 



1 Gardeners' Chronicle for 1859, p. 692. 



