TREE ROOTS ARE WATER-HUNTERS 
Its roots have a hard task to find water. They often 
grow great distances underground in search of it. They 
have been known to reach out for sixty feet toward a 
meager water supply. The Mexicans sometimes study 
these mesquite roots and the directions they are taking 
in search of water before they decide where they shall 
sink their wells. 
The business of the big roots near the base of the trees 
is largely to hold the tree in place. Anchoring a great 
tree with a leafy top thrown to the winds is no mean task. 
It is the root hairs, which are near the tips of the bigger 
ones, that suck up the water and the salts that the plant 
wants. When a root actually reaches a pond or a stream, 
it develops an entirely different kind of feeders known as 
water roots. They are smooth, whitish cords that drink 
freely through their skins. 
Root hairs can even absorb parts of rocks when their 
trees need, as food, the materials of which they are made. 
Seeds planted in sand laid on tile will go down to the 
latter and spread out upon it. If the tile is of food value 
to the tree, the roots will etch themselves into it and thus 
take their own pictures* They have absorbed part of the 
tile in doing so. 
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