CHAPTER IV 

 ROOTS 



40. Topics. — We must begin to go into details. We 

 have considered the principal parts of a seed plant in a 

 very general way. We have considered its work as a 

 whole. Now we must consider each part in more detail. 



To consider details we must divide our subject up into 

 topics. Plant life is, however, a difficult subject to divide 

 into topics. Life is not simply one thing plus a number 

 of other things. It is a great number of things all taken 

 together, and unless you can think of them all together 

 instead of all apart you can have no true picture of life. 

 You have already seen the difficulty in dividing the work 

 of a plant into the work of its parts. The work of roots, 

 stems, and leaves is so closely related that to understand 

 the work of one of these parts you must understand the 

 others as well. 



Evidently plants were not made as schoolbooks are 

 made. Schoolbooks have subdivisions and topics so that 

 one thing may be studied at a time. But plants are doing 

 everything at once and each thing as a part of the rest. 

 It is hard to make a good schoolbook about them. As 

 soon as you begin to divide their work up into parts so 

 that it may be simple for beginners to understand, you 

 find you are in danger of telling something that isn't so. 

 Yet to tell the whole truth makes the subject too difficult 

 for beginners. 



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