Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-06

| branches on his side close to the trunk, so | as to unshade his ground. One would have | thought so much weight on one side would have curved it's trunk. Nothing of the kind. The leading shoot went up as plumb | and straight as ever.
 Then again, look at the enormous weight of some of these lateral branches. On Rabbit land, near Germantown, near the
 residence of Mir. E. S. Miller, are some grand old white oak trees. Some of these
 have side branches extending horizontally clear across the highway, possibly to fifty feet from the trunk. They must weigh many hundred pound. Years ago, when these branches were but few pounds in l weight, even boy climbing along would have caused them to split from the trunk, and even now few pounds at the eXtrem- ity would cause some curving. But when it is left to the growth power alone it can preserve its exact horizontal direction, and for all its enormous weight retains com plete adhesion to the trunk.
 Washington and Indepenence squares give illustrations of this wonderful power of tree growth. In 1883 the commissioner of city property took up with the good idea of naming the trees. The Ledger showed that the growth of the trees would either force the labels from their staples, or else cause them to stand out in a horizontal llu6. Inc Aaa NAc btaPlCo drawn, but for all this in some cases the labels have been torn from their hinges, while others stand out from the trunks as if they were intended as platforms for birds to rest on. The soft cells as soft and tender as mushroom when growing, have yet power enough with ease to lift these metallic plates by the edge, and force them into a horizontal position. Any one could lift one of these to such position if the finger could be gotten for @ half inch un- der the plate, but imagine the force which a sort of yeast-like substance must possess which, getting under but perhaps the six teenth or eight of an inch, can yet elevate the plate to perfectly horizontal Gnel
 A few years ago tree exerted this won derful power in a manner to bring on a lawsuit and make much trouble all around. A dam had been built and the water for power so backed up as to make it level with the back line of the owners property.
 As it is considered scientific fact that the trunks of trees once formed cannot elongate, a mark was made on a trunk near the breastwork at exactly so many feet above the height of the dam so that on 8 repair it would be known just how high to rebuild. At the time referreds to the breastwork was renewed, and with conf dence reconstructed according to the infal- lible figures as recorded by the tree. Strange to say, the water was backed up six inches higher than before, the back water overhowing on neighbors' property, and hence the suit. Numbers of expert opinions were sought, the writer and the late Professor Gray being among those who had to give their views. Clearly the trunk could not stretch six inches, and only for the naked fact that the surveyors were sure of what the actual facts corroborated, the water was six inches higher than when the dam was first constructed.
 At last some ones horse sense pointed out what experts in science could not see. The tree was groweng on solid rock, its roots mostly passing over the surface and down the edge. The annual growth of these roots, thickening them, could not force that rock deeper into the earth, but it did lift the whole tree. Year by year these roots added to their thickness on the rocky face possibly the sixteenth of an inch, this soft, cellular material actually
 lifting the huge tree by that much, so that in ninety years the mark on the trunk would be six inches higher than at first had apparently stretched itself that much. This being settled, the breastwork had to go down that much iu order that justice might be done between neighbors.
 Nearly the same experience is common with walls, ourbstones, Soc. The growth of roots will frequently throw them over, no matter how great lift of the tree, as al
 ready cited.
 Possibly the greatest manifestation of power that could be referred to is in the power of many trees to curve their trunks when partly blown over, though they may have had them straight for a quarter of a century. This curious subject is yet in its infancy as a branch of study, but so far the curving has been noticed more in con nection with palms and coniferous trees. A trunk may be, say, twenty or thirty feet high and foot thick and as straight as a gun barrel. Should it, from any cause, become tilted, in a few years the whole trunk, from the ground to the summit, will be found curved like bow.
 It was at one time thought that plants grew toward the light, and we come to be- lieve that ''as the twig is bent the tree is inclined" :" but it now seems that "grew" is not here an active verb-the mass of fol- iage-that which was grown as well as that which is growing-is really lifted-lifted by some power in nature so far entirely un-
 known to vegetable biology.
 That it is not really light, but may be some power usually coexistant with light, which gives this tendency to go upward, is demonstrated by growth in cellars or or dark places. In the totsl absence of | light growth is still upward. Recently, in England there have been made some cur | ious observations on growth in coal mines. Posts driven in the earth often sprout and grow as if they were rooted trees planted. Some of the posts, used as props in En- glish mines, thousand feet beneath the surface, have sprouted, yet, though in | thorough darkness, the shoots have gone
 up as perfectly in an upright position as if
 in full sunlight in the open ground.
 | Tla,, 4har tD la r1r- s,, | stinct in roots that cannot be accounted for. When the seed sprouts and the stem
 starts upward to make the trunk, one bud
 pushes down into the earth to form O tap
 root. What it is that gives the order for
 one to push up and one to push down is
 incomprehensible. But, more than this,
 while the tap root is decending deep into
 the ground, as if to anchor the tree secure
 ly against wind and storm, other roots
 start to grow horizontally, just beneath
 the surface of the ground. The surface
 roots are at first but mere flores. When | the autumn arrives, and the leaves fall
 most of these fbers die also, leaving only
 few to live over, and these become per manent surface roots. Weknow why som,
 live to become permanent roots, as agains
 the thousands which die. We say they ar'
 gifted with greater vital power. They
 were able to get more nutrition than th, others, and nutritutioE to some exten
 means vigorous life-but in what way thii
 ordering of some roots to go down as an chors, and the others to spread out nea ' the surface where food is to act as feeedrs is just as deep an unsolved problem as was hundreds of years ago.
 Another puzzle in tree growth is how t account for charcoal, which forms tn main part of the structure. Every botsn , ist knows that the leading component of
 tree trunk is charcoal All that is in
 tree it has to get from the atmosphere
 This atmosphere contains carbonic acit gas, which is compound of oxygen an, carbon. It is known that the leaves sbsor , this carbonic acid gas, and that in som way it is decomposed- is believed by tn action of light. The carbon, which " 7 popularly term charcoal, is retained, whil l the oxygen is sent back again into the at 3 mosphere.
 : We know that something of this kin,
 must be, because we find the charcoa ) there, but in endeavoring to conceive o the process by which this is brought about : we are as much at a loss as we are in dis cussing how the world was made. If tn } separation of the oxygen from the carbol occurs in the green of the leaf, we have t I regard the solid carbon decending througl the whole system to the uppermost ends o l-s Il E. s-- Fl