Norwich bulletin., 1919-07-11

the various seeds. Sometimes I pIJ lettuce in first at the east edge. q :
 there and lettuce farther to the we It's largely 8 matter of chance, for, t., 1 soil is so like all over the patch thai
 one place seems as good as another. l Now, when I've drilled in those ger
 or a dozen varieties of seed. covering -four distinct families of plants, the
 seed first softens, swelIs, opens and l sends out a teeny -weeny little root Which root promptly begins it's life work, viz. the feeding of the young from the ffEe dirt particles which it eqcount terS in it's pushing downward and outward. .sa. sr0
 These dirt particles are all practi- cally the same in@ composition The i rain water which 5softens them and makes them give up their juices to the rootletS sucking is always of practi- cally the same composition. Yet the
 root which starts from a spinach seed
 takes from the soil and the moisture
 only those forms of food which make
 spinach-never by any chance the forms which make lettuce or radish or
 turnip. And the root which comes from the. radiSh seed picks out the food which makes radishes only. Some with the others Not only that but if the seed put in one rowa.was Big Bos- ton lettuce and that in the next was Hanson lettuce, the roots will pick out for one row the plant food which makes Big Boston. and for the other the plant-food which makes Hanson.
 Could you do it? Use all the brains God gave you and all the reason with which He endowed you. and all the knowledge which the accumulated la cuftivators have stored up for you, if you will. Can you by the aid of all these make soil which will contain only the lettuce elements, so that the 11f mi Vzril1 and make lettuce head? You know very well you can't. It isn't the soil that makes your seed grow into let tuce. It's that dirty little root. bur- rowing blind1y in the darkness out your sight. which unerringly picks ct of soil and water the food which makes lettuce and never radish- never, never. never!
 How does it know?
 Perhaps you say. with an ill-con- cealed sheer: Why. of course; that's its nature"
 Well, if ..ou prefer to call it ma call it instinct" when the bee flies right past the barren and nectarless flower to dive into the heart of a clover. You call it instinct when the unsteady young legs, heads straight for the mother cows udder- and bunts it vigorously if it doesn't at first supply him with the milk he seems to
  enables the bee and the calf to know their proper food and where to obtain t.*why. isn't it -instinct'' which enables the radish root to know instantly what sort of food +- select in order to become a radish / due course2 cr For my part. I can't see much diff ference between tweedledum and | tweedledee If certain act in beast l pr bee is called "instinct'' why 1
 
 lar functioning, be called "instinct'' in 1 he plant?
 I've had two notable instances of ] workings of this vegetable -insti Ut 1 number of seedlings of spinach, so as ] o have succession in crop. The first i 'owinss, last spring, were put in dur ng a wet time. They. grew slowly at i irst, bat quite normally. Sometimes, n cutting. a plant world be pulled up. ! The shallovness of ItS root system 'oon attracted my notice. Instead of ! long tap-root pushing straight ! downward as usual the tap-roots were | lbnormalfy short aud the rootlets clo-- 0 the surface and uncomnnonly hs4 / ard thick. All this time the grou.- r) saturated with moisture. It rain i d every day. more or less. and even he surface was always wet. or at i east, damp. In other words, there vas all the water the plants needed in he top inch of soil. The roots had no 1ced to pierce downward after water i IT food They took what they needed | where it was easiest to get And these plants made very tolera b1e crop-l hick- -leaved. juicy. slow in going to ;eed.
 Then the weather changed. From a in1e with daily or bi- daily rains we wung into a month without even q lrop of rain and with almost intoler- lb1e heat. Not only did that top inch # soil dry. out but the six or eight nches below dried out, too. The roots, which had obtained all peeded sup ,lies right at hand close to the sur ace during the wet spell. suddenly ound themselves trying to work ir ,one-dry dirt. The later sowings of pinach stopped growth and begun to -ellow. The tap-roots made a noble ffort to correct their initial mistake l md get down to the water table But ! t was too late. They couldn't grow downward as fast as the water table owered. Some of them did very well. |
 pulled one. last night, which, from .n almost bulbous root near the sur ace, had hurried down an unusually lender tap root more than six inches
 These later sowings} produced al nost no saleable spinach. = Instead Of making thick. gmeaty, juicy leaf -rowth, they produced only sparse and leaves. hut started seed tems almost as soon as they got bove ground. Indeed, in some case he seed stems started before the sec nd leaves, resulting in a stunted stalk with a stunted seed-head and not a .af on it as big as a nickel
 Now just reflect minute on what appened underground. These poor pinach roots. finding it absolutely iro- ossible to get the food necessary / orma1 leaf growth. had promo. urned a right-about-face, and set out 0 develop at least some seed. In plant fife as in animal, the first and most f-- .<F e. production. That command these tarving rootlets obeyed. Since they ouldn't find food enough to make caves, they set out to make seed, if r hat much were still possible.
 Someone will say. perhaps: Why, course, things do poorly in a rought. That's nothing to make talk yer" Yes. yes: but why did these pinach roots which. normally, would ave spent the first few days of their yes feeding big. fat. lasciousu leaves,