8o Field- Labourers 



holes, and the plant of course gains by this. The 

 longer the root, the larger the surface with which it is 

 brought in contact, and the larger the supply of food 

 which it can extract; and it obtains this food more 

 quickly where it can run through a tube than where it 

 has to force its way through close soil, and con- 

 sequently the plant grows more rapidly. 



Much of this will be more readily understood when 

 we come to speak of how plants feed and grow ; but 

 we may mention here that plants which are able to 

 send down roots to any considerable depth have the 

 advantage of reaching soil which is quite fresh and 

 unexhausted ; they have also plenty of room in which 

 to develop their roots, and, more important still, their 

 roots are kept warm and well supplied with moisture 

 at all times, even when the surface of the ground is 

 frozen hard. Dig through the frozen surface, and you 

 will always find moist earth beneath ; so also even in 

 drought, there will be more moisture below than on 

 the surface ; and this moisture plants are enabled to 

 reach by means of the worm -tubes, instead of spread- 

 ing their roots only, or chiefly, through the surface- 

 soil as they might otherwise do. 



However, as we have observed already, man may 

 tame a lion, but he cannot control a single worm — 

 cannot make his wishes understood or respected by 

 one of these insignificant creeping things ; and so, as 

 the worm's proceedings are at times exceedingly irre- 

 gular, he blames the worm, and sometimes goes so far 

 as to deny that it does any good at all. 



Their way of top-dressing lawns and paths does not 

 improve the appearance of either, we must admit ; top- 

 dressing may be all very well in a meadow, or in the 



