THE FOOD OF TREES IS IMBIBED 



PT. II. 



But how, by Eoget's and the received system, shall 

 these slim sisters of Phaeton drink their own tears? 

 Their capillary stomata (since the jargon of science 

 will mingle ' verbis Grasca Latinis ') are at the distance 

 of the vertical height of the trees from their stems, 

 instead of the horizontal width of the branches. This 

 may be seen from suckers. And how is the poor oak 

 to enjoy the drip from his own wide-spread branches, 

 when its single capillary stoma is buried, perhaps, .a 

 hundred feet directly imder the centre of its stem ? 



Owing to condensation, the ground underneath the 

 head of a tree is much more watered than that outside 

 it ; and, besides this, it escapes the great evaporation of 

 the summer drought and heat. For when the rays 

 ' nimium propinqui solis ' are the hottest, its canopy of 

 leaves is the densest. 

 Argument The editor of the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' thinks 



from the 



'Gardener's that roots absorb only by their ends, because gardeners 



Chronicle' ^ *^ 'to 



considered. (-||g niauure in only round the outside of the semicircle 

 of the roots of their fruit-trees, without perceiving that 

 the fact cuts against his own argument. If they were 

 to dig it in nearer the stem their spade would destroy 

 the really absorbent part of the root, the woody part ; 

 and, as ' omne majus continet in se minus,' they would 

 also destroy the much- valued spongioles. By digging 

 round the outside, they destroy little more than the 



precario a Tullio postulasset, ut locum dicendi permutaret secnm : 

 abire enim in villain necessario se velle, nt vinum platano, quam 

 in Tusculano posuerat, ipse snffanderet.' 



