the rooting habits of corn and oaks when full grown. "Who knows 

 whether these plants have roots that go down deep into the earth or 

 that spread out close beneath the surface of the ground? 



If some seeds are grown lietween blotting paper or folds of cloth 

 laid in a dish with just enough water to keep them moist, and another 

 dish turned over for a cover to prevent the whole from drying out, 

 some more important and curious things can be seen. The roots will 

 be nearly covered with white, delicate root-hairs, that collapse and 

 wholly disappear if kept in the open air for a time. At the tips of 

 the roots and back a ways from the tips there are no root-hairs, this 

 being the part that pushes through the soil; and there are none 

 on the oldest parts of the roots, but for a very different reason. Some 

 kinds of plants produce more and larger root-hairs than others; they 

 are so small on the oak seedlings that I have to take a magnifying 

 glass to see them. Examine roots growing in earth and notice how 

 the hairs cling to the particles of the soil. It is the way the plant 

 has of getting nourishment out of the ground. The root-hairs help 

 to dissolve the solid particles, which they afterward absorb, together 

 with moisture and any nutrient matters held in the soil water. 



I have just tried growing some seeds in a covered dish fixed up 

 with wet blotting paper, so that the seeds are kept damp enough, but 

 the roots have to grow out into the moist air of the dish, and I 

 have found out a number of strange things that I did not suspect 

 before. When I go for acorns next time I intend to look for walnut, 

 hickory, sycamore and other tree seeds, and also for various kinds 

 of weed seeds, and it may be that I can find some little plantlets 

 already started. It seems much easier to see all these curious things 

 now that some of them have been pointed out, than when I brought 

 in my first handful of acorns. 



