The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1891-12-10
EATERS Or CARBON.
Trees snd Plants Grow Out of the Air.
Not from TIL. Ground.

Trees snd Plants Grow out of the Air.
Not from TIL. Ground.
Take an ordinary seltzer water siphon
and empty il till only few drops re-
main in the bottom Then the bottle is
full of gus, and that gas. which will
rush cut with squirt when you press
the knob. is the stuff that plants eat
raw material of life, both animal and
vegetable. The tree grows aad lives by
taking in the cavlponic acid from the air
and sohdifviag its carbon: the animal
grows AMI lives by taking the solicited
carbon from the plant AID converting Il
once more into c9rhouic acid.
That, III its ideally simple form. is the
Had in Il nutshell. the core and kernel
of biology The whole cycle of life is
one eternal seeSaw First the plant col
lects IFS carbon compounds from the air
in the uxiGizel state; it deoxidizes and
rebuildS them. and then the animal pro-
ceeds to hurn 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 rn;,d as before and the animal
also recomIncuces ia capo And so on
al infinitum
But the poiut which | want particu-
larly 10 emphasize here is Just tnis. That
trees and plants don't grew ont of the
ground at all. as most people do valnly
talk, but directly ont Of the air, and
that when they die OF get consumed
they return once more 10 the atmosphere
from which they were taken. Trees nm
deniably eat carbon.
OF course, therefore. ali the ordinary
unscientiic conceptions of how plants
feed are absolutely erroneous. Vegetable
physiology indeed got beyond those
conceptions a good hundred years ago.
But ii usually ,akes a hundred years fo,
the world at large TO make mp lis 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 a 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; bat, of course, they don't think
i 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.
Bnt 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 | can get mo
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 a few other thinge
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
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
carbon, and many plants have another
set of subterranean mouths as well, to
suck up water and mineral constituents.
--Cornhill Magazine