PLANTS SPREAD BY MEANS OF ROOTS. 
7 
4. How nature plants lilies. — Lilies grow from bulbs 
which are planted six inches beneath the surface. Do 
you know how nature plants them ? A seed starts and 
becomes a small plant on the surface of the leaf mould or 
a little beneath ; little roots push downward and to right 
and left ; and later, after getting a good hold below with 
numerous branchlets, the slender roots shorten and tug 
away at the tiny bulb above, as much as to say, “ Come 
down a little into mother earth, for cold winter is approach- 
ing and there will be danger from frost.” The young 
bulb is drawn down an inch more or less, the slender 
roots perish with the growing year, but the bulb is pre- 
served. The seedling was well planned; for while it had 
yet tender leaves during its first year, starch and proto- 
plasm were stored up in the thickened scales of the bulb. 
During the second spring some of this food in store is 
used to send down another set of slender roots with the 
message to gather in more water, potash, phosphorus, 
nitrogen, and other substances to help grow a larger bulb. 
In late summer and autumn the new roots contract and 
pull away at the greater bulb, and down it goes into the 
ground another inch or so. I have a theory as to how it 
finally comes to be drawn down just deep enough and no 
more, but I will not venture to give it. This process is 
repeated from year to year till the proper depth is reached 
for preserving the full-grown bulb. And this is the way 
nature plants bulbs. 
In a similar manner young slender roots well anchored 
