CH. r. 



BY THE SURFACE OF THE ROOTS. 



35 



is bad. It makes the roots of the young plant more 

 accessible to drought, and less accessible to watering ; 

 while the roots of the older plant, when unfenced, are 

 entirely denuded by cattle treading away the earth, 

 and suffer both from crnawinty and treadino;. Trees 

 should be planted at the exact level which their roots 

 are afterwards to pursue, and a pan made round them 

 by a slightly raised rim. This saves time and water in 

 irrigating them, while it prevents overflows from with- 

 out, to which the cup system is liable. 



The roots of a wall-fruit tree form a horizontal semi- 

 circular fan, as the head forms a vertical semicircular 

 fan ; the roots being kept up by the bad soil, and kept 

 down by the action of the spade. And on account of 

 the lateral upward growth of roots, alluded to in another 

 place, the older the fruit-tree the less deeply the spade 

 should go over its roots. 



This is a long story ; perhaps I ought to say That roots 



_ ^ absorb only 



dio^ression. But I cannot pass over the belief in the by sponges 



^ i- or capillary 



spongioles and cajnllary stomata at the ends of roots, theTrtSdfa 

 and that the food of plants is solely absorbed by them, ^^uigaf'' 

 as one of those speculative theories and pretty notions 

 which our marvel-mongering nature is so prone to adopt, 

 and so loth to part with. The notion pretends to the 

 authority of practice, and to stand on experiment and 

 facts. It is not a vulgar vulgar error, but a scientific 

 vulgar error ; and should the man of common sense 

 reproach me that I have wasted much time to prove 

 what we need no ghost to tell us, my excuse is, that 



D 2 



