26 



THE FOOD OF TREES IS IMBIBED 



PT. ir. 



are useful as absorbents only at their ends ? If so, 

 would these magnificent conduits of the upward sap, or 

 could they, enlarge directly as their distance from their 

 petty supply ? I think the reverse of all this is the 

 case : that the root absorbs laterally from the whole of 

 its mature length. 



^o. 4. On the 7th of June, 1850, I took half a 

 dozen radishes grown in an open bed, which the 

 gardeners were pulling up because too large and too 

 old for use ; I cut off the lower halves of the bulbs, 

 rubbed off the side-rootlets, and transplanted the upper 

 half-bulbs to an open bed under a south wall, taking 

 the precaution to diminish their heads by cutting off 

 nearly all their large leaves. The stalk of one had 

 grown up about three inches. For the three succeeding 

 days the thermometer on the wall rose above 90°, on 

 the fourth day above 100°. The plants were watered 

 each day, but not sheltered from the sun. All grew. 

 By midsummer, and after that, the thermometer fre- 

 quently stood at 84° in the shade, and 111° in the sun, 

 on the wall under which Nos. 1,2, and 4 were growing. 

 Not a leaf of either tiagged. There were by this time 

 flowers on the tops of the stalks in all three experi- 

 ments : and in the autumn all bore seed most profusely, 

 much of which ripened. 

 That First comes the unsound datum, then follows the 



b r 3,11 c b. G s 



are the unsound theory. Eoget remarks, in reference to roots, 



same ■ ^ ^ 



length as that ' as a constant relation is preserved between their 



roots a 



tharthe^"^ lateral extension and the horizontal spreading of the 



