30 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



that it can save it puts into the root, which is a kind 

 of plant savings bank. Then, in the second year, it 

 uses this store of food to make flowers and seeds. K 

 you examine the carrot root after the seeds have 

 ripened, you will find that the store of food is gone. 

 In the same way, you expect to find in a plant that 

 has lived for ages in a very dry land a deep root or 

 a swollen root — a root formed to live through drought. 



6. But now comes a question I have been expecting : 

 " Do not the roots eat up all the food in the soil ; and 

 what do they do then ? Nature meets this difficulty 

 in several ways. One way is to supply fresh food, and 

 another is to remove the plant to a fresh piece of 

 ground. 



7. How Nature renews the root-foods. When a 

 wheat plant has grown up, man cuts it down and 

 carries it off. With every waggon of wheat that leaves 

 a field, a part of the root-food of that field is lost ; but 

 when grass grows wild it dies down and retm-ns to the 

 soil the food that it got from it. Trees strew the 

 ground beneath them with leaves and bark and twigs, 

 all of which, when decayed, make root-food. Then, 

 again, millions of creatures die every season and enrich 

 the earth. An animal lives on plants ; and therefore 

 when it dies becomes food for the plants. While the 

 animal is alive, its droppings help to renew the root- 

 foods. The burying-beetle that covers up these 

 droppings with soil is a most useful food-getter for the 

 roots. 



8. How the good farmer imitates Nature. The 

 good farmer imitates Nature's plans as closely as he 

 can. He returns to the field all the straw and all the 

 animal droppings that he can collect. He even 



