Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-10-09
THEY LIVE ON CARBON.
A NEW THEORY CONCERNING
THE VEGETABLE WORLD.
Trees and Plants Grow Out of the AIR,
Not Out of thu GrOund-Many
Plants Need No Roots,
All Have Leaves.

Take an ordinary soda water siphon.
with or without "a wineglassful OF
brandy. and empty it till only few
drops remain in the bottom. Then
the bottle is full of gas, and that gas,
which will rush out with q squirt when
you press the knob, is the stuff that
plants eat-the raw material OF life,
both animal and vegetable, save 81 wri-
ter in the Cornhill Magazine. The
tree grows and lives by taking in the
carbonic acid from the air and solidi-
flying its carbon; the animal grows
and lives by taking the solidifying car
bon from the plant and converting it
once more into carbonic acid. That
in its ideally simple form, is the lliad
in a nutshell. the core and kernel of
biology. First the plant collects its
carbon compounds from the air in the
oxidized state; it deoxidizes and re-
builds them and then the animal pro-
ceeds 10 burn them up by slow COM
bustion within his own body and to
turn them fourth upon the air. once
more oXidized. After which the plant
starts again on the same road as be-
fore, and the animal also recommences
deacapO. And so on ad minimum.
But the point which l want partlcu-
larly TO emphasize here is just this
That trees and plants don't grow out
of the ground at all, as most people
do vainly talk. but directly out of the
air, and that when they die or get con-
sumed they return once more TO the
atmosphere from which they were
taken
OF course, therefore, all the ordina-
ry unscientilic conceptions Of how
plants feed are absolutely erroneous.
Vegetable physiology indeed. got be-
yond those conceptions q good hun
dred years ago. But it usually takes
100 years for the world at large TO
make up its leeway. Trees don't suck
up their nutriment by the roots; they
don't derive their food from the soil:
they don't need to be fed, like babies,
through tube. with terrestrial solids.
The solitary instance OF an orchid
hung up by string in IL conservatory
on piece Of bark ought to be suffi-
cient at once TO dispel forever this
strange illusion If people ever
thought;but OF course they don't think
Il mean other people The true
mouths and stomachs OF plants are not
10 be found in the roots, but in the
green leaves; their true food is not
sucked up from the soil. but is inhaled
through tiny channels from the air;
the mass OF their material is carbon.
as we can all see visibly to the naked
eye when n log of wood is reduced TO
charcoal, and that carbon the leaves
themselves drink in, by u thousand
small green mouths, from the atinos-
phere around them.
But how about the juice, the sap.
the qualities OF the soil. the manure
required? is the incredulous cry of
other people. What is the use OF the
roots. and especially Of the rootlets,
if they are not the mouths and supply
tubes of the plants? Well. / plainly
perceive can get mo forrader. like
the farmer with bis claret. till I've
answered that question. Professionally
at least; so will say here, at once.
without further ado-the plant re-
quires drink as well as food. and the
roots are the mouths that supply it
with water. They also suck up a few
other things as we'll which are neces-
sary indeed, but far from forming the
bulk of the nutriment Many plants.
however don't need any roots at all,
while none can get on without mouths
aud stomachs. That is to say, no true
plant like plants, for some parasite
plants are practically. TO all intents
and purposes, animals. To put it
briefly. every plant has one set OF
aerial mouths to suck in carbon, and
many plants have another set of sub
terranean mouths as WELL to suck up
sater and mineral constituents.