88 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



take of mother earth," like the talons of a hawk with a deadly grip 

 fixed in its prey, And a poet has said in reference to trees : 



" Their gnarled roots type earnest Will, 

 That holds its purpose fast ; 

 Their ponderous arms may bend, but still 

 Regain their place at last." 



A remarkable instance of the exhibition of the power ot adapta- 

 tion possessed by trees and herbs in common may be here related. 

 On a piece of moist woodland on my farm a number of swamp elm 

 trees are growing, and these trees, by the clearing up of an adjoining 

 piece of land, became subjected and exposed to a new strain and a 

 new danger, viz., violent south westerly breezes. Trees of this 

 species are rapid growers and deposit woody tissue very energetically ; 

 also they have a habit, where the soil is stiff and clayey, of forming 

 roots on or partly above the surface of the ground ; and the peculiar 

 efforts put forth by the specmiens here alluded to would have con- 

 vinced the most sceptical mind, as the Comtists say, " That there is 

 an unknowable (not beneficent) Reahty behind Phenomena." I 

 myself was stricken with astonishment on observing, two years after, 

 the changed conditions, the enormous development of buttress roots 

 and propping supports that had so opportunely come to the rescue. 

 The effect, to one who so well remembered the original forms of 

 those trees, seemed little less than magical, and I may truly say that 

 the process is going on still, for only a few of the trees have been 

 cut down. 



The maize plant (corn) also conspicuously shows wonderful 

 resource in conservation of its living energies. All farmers know 

 that as soon as the corn has grown sufficiently high to be swayed 

 and bent over by the summer wind, hautterranean or above-ground 

 roots emerge, two or three inches above the surface of the soil, from 

 the stalk of the plant, and descend into the earth. They act and 

 serve the purpose of hawsers and guy ropes, and give a firm basis to 

 ali the stalwart species of the Graminese or Zeas. Under some 

 conditions, such as in instances of rank tall growth, and on exposed 

 hills, some of the cereals, as wheat and oats, exhibit the same self- 

 preserving device. This we assert from personal observation too ; 

 in fact, " Ex uno disce omnes" if it exists in one, it is inherent to all. 

 Workers in a maple sugar bush are often puzzled to account 

 for this circumstance, viz., that when a maple tree leans towards the 



