rom twenty to forty feet in each direction, and almost anywhere along
these roots buds may appear, and a shoot spring up and become a tree.

This peculiarity is worth as much to locusts in the matter of spreading
as though the parent trees were able to move about. A number of kinds
of poplars and willows, ailanthus, some of the elms, ashes, sweet
potatoes, milkweeds, Canada thistles, and others behave in a similar
manner. Little bits of Canada-thistle root half an inch long may send
forth buds, and each bud grow to be an independent plant.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Buds and shoots sprouting from roots of the
common locust.]

Roots have a peculiarity not usually known. They stretch out and crook
about here and there, penetrating the crevices of the soil wherever
there is the least chance, and the matured portions begin to shorten,
reminding one somewhat of an angleworm when one end has been stepped
on. By this shortening process the top or crown of a dandelion or
plantain is pulled down beneath the surface of the ground.

4. How nature plants lilies.--Lilies grow from bulbs which are
planted six inches beneath the surface. Do you know how nature plants
them? A seed starts and becomes a small plant on the surface of the
leaf mould or a little beneath; little roots push downward and to
right and left; and later, after getting a good hold below with
numerous branchlets, the slender roots shorten and tug away at the
tiny bulb above, as much as to say, "Come down a little into mother
earth, for cold winter is approaching and there will be danger from
frost." The young bulb is drawn down an inch more or less, the slender
roots perish with the growing year, but the bulb is preserved. The
seedling was well planned; for while it had yet tender leaves during
its first year, starch and protoplasm were stored up in the thickened
scales of the bulb. During the second spring some of this food in
store is used to send down another set of slender roots with the
message to gather in more water, potash, phosphorus, nitrogen, and
other substances to help grow a larger bulb. In late summer and autumn
the new roots contract and pull away at the greater bulb, and down
it goes into the ground another inch or so. I have a theory as to
how it finally comes to be drawn down just deep enough and no more,
but I will not venture to give it. This process is repeated from year
to year till the proper depth is reached for preserving the full-grown
b