The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1913-07-28
PLANTS WORK
FOR LIVING
Like Humans They Must Toll
and Struggle for the Priv.
ilcge of Existing.
.(Kansas City Starr

.(Kansas City Starr I
Consider the lilies of the field, how
they grow; they toll not, neither do
they spin.
The foregoing familiar biblical
quotation expresses a popular fancy
n a poetic sentiment, scientists say,
but not the physical fact. The price
of existence for the lilies of the field,
as we'll as AL other forms of plant
life. is i%ncessant work; it is only be-
cause they arc placid Of mien, and
do not visibly hurry and fret and
strain, that we conclude they lead a
life of luxurious ease, idling away a
more or less brief season as orna-
on the landscape. If plant ac-
tons could be magnified in speed they
would quickly convince the observer
as to the labor they perform.
William F. Ganong, professor of
botany in Smith college, says in his
book. The Living Plant" something
of what might. be seen if plant labors
We're so fastened. Then the observer
would see the tip of every growing
energetically about, sc that a meadow,
a copse Or a forest would seem all
of a vigorous tremhle. as if straining
at some hidden leash; he would see
the buds of some flowers open and
close with a straining yawn or a sud-
den snap, n others burst into bloom
like a rocket when it breaks to a
spray of many colored lights; roots
in their efforts to penetrate the earth
turning and twisting like angleworms;
seedlings in their struggle to break
through the round heaving and strain
ing at the burden of superintendent
soil, like a powerful man at some
load which has fallen upon him; ten
drills swooping in curves through the
air. gripping the first thing they meet
and jerking their plants toward the
support"
And that incessant labor, none the
less real because the movements are
too slow to be seen by human eyes,
is going on within the plant, as we'll
as without. Continual changes are
taking place in the plant structure:
new growths are being added, and
external injuries repaired and healed
forcing it's way through the fibrous
and cellular structure, and innumer-
able structural atoms are hurrying
about, performing their varied and
never-ending tasks of building.
Everyone has noticed the tremend-
Gus, it lm~perceptible force eXerted by
growing plants when their develop
ment is restricted by stones or other
obstacles. A minute seed may lodge
in a pinch of earth in a crevice of
a granite cliff, terminate and send
tiny delicate roots feeling their way
deeper into the restricted aperture.
Their progress is painfully slow, but
irresistible. In the course of time the
little seed, which fell into such an
u~nfriendly environment, grows into a
sturdy, towering tree and it's roots
have split and rent asunder masses
of stone Weighing tons. The roots
OF trees planted along city streets fire.
quently throw out of place ponderous
curbstones hal interfere with their
growth and pavements themselves are
uplifted and cracked by the strength
of h seemingly frail plants. Even
~soft-bodied funse, such as mush-
rooms. are capable of bursting upward
an asphalt pavement, an example of
this being shown in an illustration
in Prof. Ganong's book. Students. of
plant life have found that squashes
and other gourd-like growths, when
harnessed to the proper recording
machinery. exert thousands of pounds
pressure. "Every operation of plant
life Professor Ganong says. in
wolves some movement, and therefore
real work: so hat animals and plants
are working, and often right hard
from the physical point of view, when
they merely are keeping alive-a con-
clusion from which the reader is well
come to draw any comforts he can"