94 JOURNAL AND PR®CEEDINGS 



of the matrix to be occupied by the enlarging root. This theory, 

 however, is only suggested for whatever it may be worth ; any other 

 explanation seeming beset with difficulties, for when portions of the 

 roots were forcibly pulled out, the tunnels they had occupied 

 remained intact, and the theory of mechanical uplifting force seems 

 untenable. 



Also, in digging holes into very dense strata of clay or marl, to 

 the depth of four feet or more, the roots of the common elder shrub 

 are frequently met with. Their power to burrow and penetrate into 

 such intractable substances cannot fail to excite feelings of surprise. 

 It is well known too, that the Canada thistle roots have the faculty 

 of travelling extensively at a depth of two or three feet underground, 

 through the hard-pan subsoil. The roots frequently encroach in 

 this way from the fields of a negligent, weed-permitting farmer by 

 underground approaches, thus dodging the boundary • fence and 

 appearing again, or rather pushing up their superstructure in the 

 field adjoining. These thistle roots too have the same auger-like 

 form, and as no chips or borings are ever visibly left behind in their 

 onward march, the theory of absorption and assimilation seems 

 plausible. 



When noticing these things, and similar almost unaccountable 

 phenomena of vegetable growth and life, in the midst of summer 

 fields and farm labor, we have sometimes felt inclined to ask the 

 question : " Is there an extraneous force of Will which acts on mat- 

 ter in derogation of laws purely physical, or alters the balance of 

 these laws among themselves ?" (Gladstone.) 



For instance, in the common unromantic work of thinning out 

 turnips, if in the usual haste of this occupation one plant is not 

 removed far enough, a single fibrous root, all but invisible in its 

 gossamer-like tenuity, remaining to connect the plant with its former 

 place in the earth. In spite of the scorching rays of a July sun the 

 said plant is preserved from withering, and although its congeners, 

 whose connection to mother earth has been totally severed, are 

 withered to nothingness in a few hours, our plant, with this slender 

 umbilical connection, will live and thrive, soon throwing out auxil- 

 iary roots, which go down into the soil, and so the organism is pre- 

 served and succeeds in becoming a continuer of its species. So, in 

 such instances, we see that plant fife is not pulseless, and we can 

 hardly conceive the activity of the vital currents that must pass to and 



