Chap. I.] BY THE SURFACE OF THE ROOTS. 
19 
description of planting the olive, I imagine the 
Spanish to be a lineal descendant of the Roman 
method. Virgil also alludes to this mode of cul¬ 
tivating the olive in the Second Book of the 
Georgies: — 
“ Quin et caudicibus sectis (mirabile dictu!) 
Truditur e sicco radix oleagina ligno.” 
I have known cuttings of pinuses kept out of 
doors without heat, to live for two years, and 
even to make small shoots, without forming a 
symptom of a root. That these were fed for two 
years by the absorption of their wood from the 
earth, and not, as Priestley and Liebig would have 
it, by the absorption of their foliage from the air, 
is clear, — because, if cuttings are left without 
being placed in the earth, they die at once. 
If a long vine-branch is coiled round the inside 
of a flower-pot and covered with earth, as it is 
ten times as long below the earth as a common 
cutting, it will shoot with ten times as much 
vigour; and if heat is given, it will bear fruit the 
first year. It will also appear, from experiments 
which I shall detail, that if every root is cut or 
rubbed off a radish, it will grow, either in water 
or in earth. Nay, if the bulb is cut in two, and 
the upper half planted, this rootless half-bxi\b 
will grow. 
The coiled 
branch imbibes 
from the sur¬ 
face. 
Radishes im¬ 
bibe by the sur¬ 
face. 
