143 THE GREENWOOD TREE. 



It is quite otherwise, however, with the soil and its 

 constituents. Land, we all know — or if we don't, it 

 isn't the fault of Mr. George and Mr. A. E. Wallace — 

 land is 'naturally limited in quantity.' Every plant 

 therefore struggles for a foothold in the soil far more 

 fiercely and far more tenaciously than it struggles for its 

 share in the free air of heaven. Your plant is a land- 

 grabber of Kob Eoy proclivities ; it believes in a fair 

 fight and no favour. A suflicient supply of food it 

 almost takes for granted, if only it can once gain a 

 suflicient ground-space. But other plants are competing 

 with it, tooth and nail (if plants may be permitted by 

 courtesy those metaphorical adjuncts), for their share of 

 the soil, like crofters or socialists ; every spare inch of 

 earth is permeated and pervaded with matted fibres ; 

 and each is striving to withdraw from each the small 

 modicum of moisture, mineral matter, and manure for 

 which all alike are eagerly battling. 



Now, what the plant wants from the soil is three 

 things. First and foremost it wants support ; like all 

 the rest of us it must have its '})ou sto, its picd-a-tcru, 

 its locus standi. It can't hang aloft, like Mahomet's 

 coffin, miraculously suspended on an aerial perch between 

 earth and heaven. Secondly, it wants water, and this 

 it can take in, as a rule, only or mainly by means of the 

 rootlets, though thcxC are some peculiar plants which 

 grow (not parasitically) on the branches of trees, and 

 absorb all the moisture they need by pores on their sur- 

 face. And thirdly, it wants small quantities of nitrogen- 

 ous matter — in the simpler language of everyday life 

 called manuie— as well as of mineral matter — in the 



