The business of roots.
When a seed sprouts, the root, I have told you, goes down into the ground, while the stalk goes upward into the air. The root goes down because the food of the plant is in the ground. It is the business of the root to suck up this food, so that the plant may be nourished and grow. The root is, then, a sort of stomach to the plant. If it had no root it would not grow, any more than you would if you had no stomach to put your food in.
Mouths in their fibres.
The root has little mouths in its branches every where. It is by these that the food of the plant is sucked up. They are so small that you can not see them without a powerful microscope. They are in the fine parts or fibres of the root that you see hanging to the main branches of it when you take up a root. We are very careful not to break off these fibres when we take up a plant or tree to set it out again in another place; for the more of these little mouths there are, the more likely will it be to live. If all the fibres be broken off from the root the plant can not live, because there are no mouths to suck up the food. It will die just as you would if you should stop eating.
As there are little mouths all over the fibres of a root, there must be a multitude of them. You can not count them any more than you can count the sands on the sea-shore. These mouths drink up a fluid from the ground. This fluid is the sapthat goes up in the stalk to nourish the plant. Every thing in the plant—the leaves, the flowers, the fruit—is made, as I have told you before, from the sap that the root sucks up.
Mouths in roots choose what they will suck up.
These mouths do not suck up exactly the same thing in all roots. The sap of one plant differs somewhat from that of another plant. What the root of a pepper-plant sucks up is not the same that is sucked up by the root of a strawberry-plant. The root of the pepper-plant sucks up such sap that the biting peppers can be made out of it. And the root of the strawberry-plant sucks up sap that is fitted to make its pleasant fruit.
The pepper-plant and the strawberry-plant are so different from each other, that we should hardly suppose that they could grow out of the same earth side by side. But they can. How is this? Do the little mouths in the roots choose their food? They do. The strawberry mouths choose what will make strawberries, and the pepper mouths choose what will make peppers. But they do not choose in the same way that we choose. They do not think about it as we do. But they choose just as well as if they did think. Perhaps they choose better than we do. We sometimes make mistakes about our food. But they always choose just right. How this is we do not know. God has made them in such a way that they suck up the right kind of food from the earth. This is all that we know about it.
Very commonly different kinds of plants will grow in the same kind of earth. What a variety of plants and trees you often see in the same garden! But sometimes one plant requires a different soil from other plants. You see this in the asparagus. Thisvegetable does best in a soil that has considerable salt in it; that is, it thrives on salt food, as we may say. For this reason we sprinkle salt over an asparagus-bed in the spring.
Asparagus roots like salted food.
But while salt makes the asparagus grow so well, it will kill other plants. It will kill all the weeds and grass that happen to be in the asparagus-bed. If you put on a good deal of salt no weeds will come up till after all the salt is sucked up by the asparagus. I had a chance last spring to see how bad salt is for grass. The man who put the salt on my asparagus-bed spilled some of it on a grassplot close by. In every spot where it fell it killed the grass. So you see that what is poison to grass is food to asparagus.
Flowers in swamps.
We find some kinds of flowers only in swamps. These will not grow well in the high grounds where the soil is different. The reason is, that the little mouths in the roots do not find the right kind of food there.
Questions.—How is the root a sort of stomach to a plant? Where are the little mouths of the root? What is said about care in moving plants or trees? What is said of the number of mouths in a root, and of their size? Do the roots of the pepper-plant and the strawberry-plant suck up the same kind of food? What is said of the mouths of roots choosing their food from the ground? Tell about the asparagus. What is said of plants growing in swamps?
Questions.—How is the root a sort of stomach to a plant? Where are the little mouths of the root? What is said about care in moving plants or trees? What is said of the number of mouths in a root, and of their size? Do the roots of the pepper-plant and the strawberry-plant suck up the same kind of food? What is said of the mouths of roots choosing their food from the ground? Tell about the asparagus. What is said of plants growing in swamps?