Los Angeles herald., 1891-10-27
EATERS or CARBON.
frees and PIants Grow Out of che All
Not frnnn the Grnnnd.


frees and PIapts Grow Out of she Air.
Not from the Ground.
Take an ordinary seltzer water siphon
and empty it till only few drops re-
main in the bottom Then the bottle is
full of gas, and that gas, which will
rush out with a squirt when you press
the knob, is the stuff that plants eat
raw material of life, both animal and
vegetable. The tree grows and lives by
taking in the carbonic acid from the air
and solidifying its carbon; the animal
grows and lives by taking the solidiied
carbon from the plant and converting it
once more into carbonic acid.
That, in its ideally simple form, is the
Had in a nutshell, the core and kernel
of biology The whole cycle of life is
one eternal seesaw. First the plant col
lects its carbon compounds from the air
in the oxidized state; it deoxidizes and
rebuilds them, and then the animal pro-
ceeds to burn them by slow combustion
within its own body and to turn them
loose upon the air once more oxidized
After which the plant starts again on
the same road as before, and the animal
also recomnences da capo. And so on
ad infnitum.
But the point which want particu-
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 consumed
they return once more to the atmosphers
from which they were taken. Trees un-
deniably eat carbon.
OF course, therefore, all the ordinary
unscientifc conceptions of how plants
feed are absolutely erroneous. Vegetable
physiology indeed got beyond those
conceptions a good hundred years ago.
But it usually takes hundred years for
the world at large to make up its lee
way. Trees don't suck up their nutri-
ment 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
conservatory on piece of bark ought to
be sufficient at once to dispel forever
this strange delusion-if people ever
thought; but, of course, they don't think
II mean other people.
The true mouths and stomachs of
plants are not to be found in the roots,
but in the green leaves; their true food
is not sucked up from the soil, but is in
hailed through tiny channels from the
air; the mass of their material is carbon,
as we can all see visibly to the naked eye
when log of wood is reduced to char
coal, and that carbon the leaves them
selves drink in by thousand small
green mouths from the atmosphere
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 espe-
cially of the rootlets, if they are not the
mouths and supply tubes of the plants:
Well, plainly perceive l can get "no
forrader," like the farmer with his claret,
till I've answered that question, pro-
visionally at least; so will say here at
once, without further ado, that the plant
requires drink as well as food, and the
roots are the mouths that supply it with
water.
They also suck up few other things
as well, which are necessary indeed, but
far from forming the bulk of the nutri-
ment. Many plants, however, don't
need any roots at all, while none can
get on Without leaves as mouths and
stomaehs-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
carbon, and many plants have another
set of subterranean mouths as well, to
suck up water and mineral constituents.
-Cornhill Magazine.