Exploring the Woodpile 171 



living in an abandoned sandy orchard where cattle 

 browse. It bristles defiance to a hostile world. 



On wild trees, especially those that grow In 

 pastures, thorns save the branches which bear them 

 from- being eaten by cattle. The haws, which love 

 to live in open fields where cows and sheep browse, 

 are armed all over with woody thorns. 



In city streets we sometimes see trees that have 

 been protected from nibbling horses by wooden 

 boxes which squeezed their trunks. Here in the 

 woodpile is part of a country tree which has suf- 

 fered in a similar way — its trunk has been tightly 

 bound by a fence wire. 



In the time of leaves, water from the earth, 

 with mineral substances dissolved in it, goes up 

 through trunk and boughs into the foliage, and 

 there' is changed by the help of air and sunshine 

 into liquid plant-food. Then that part of the 

 tree's rations which is to feed the lower part of the 

 trunk and the roots moves downward through the 

 inner bark. 



But in tightly bandaged trees the inner bark Is 

 squeezed, and all the tiny tubes In it are flattened, 

 so that very little fluid can slip through them. The 

 nourishment which should feed the lower part of 

 the tree is held back. The lower end of the trunk 

 is not getting enough and its growth is checked. 

 Its share of food cannot get past the squeeze, but 

 is forced to stay and over-feed that part of the 

 trunk which is just above the tree-box or the wire. 



