Part 8

You see, then, that while the last year’s soft wood becomes a hard ring or layer, another is formed in its place alongside of the liber. The hard wood is dead compared with the softer kind.

I think I understand that. But where does the nourishment come from?

The sap when first rising is watery and nearly colourless. But after exposure to air and light in the leaf, and losing much water in evaporation, it becomes thicker, and, descending by the bark, is prepared, like blood, to renew and to form different parts of the structure.

Is there any other movement of the fluids of a plant?

Yes, there is a true circulation in the interior of all the cells.

Does a tree form a fresh ring of wood every year?

This depends upon the character of the tree. Some trees take many years in forming it.

How is it that the layers of our Gum tree are not equal in thickness?

That is influenced by the season. One year it was very cold or dry, and the tree made little wood. Another season, the rain was abundant, and the sun did his work well, and so the concentric or ring-like layer was fuller.

But I see that on one side of the tree, the bands are thinner than on the other.

That was the side that received the cold wind. The greater the number of leaf-buds above a part of a stem, the greater the diameter.

How does the bark manage when the tree forms new wood, and presses against the liber?

The outer bark cracks and peels off. When the bark grows, it does so internally; a new liber appearing adjoining the layer of new alburnum.

What connection, father, has grafting trees with growing?

The gardener takes a bud of one fruit-tree, and applies its liber, the life part, to the liber of the stock of another tree, binds them together, and puts clay outside to exclude the air. The nature, then, of the bud is communicated to the tree; the juices will be altered, and another fruit produced.

Well, thank you kindly, dear father. I do feel that I know something now about a tree growing. I can tell, too, why a tree does better in one place than another, making more wood and leaves. It is when it can find in the soil a sufficient amount of food, in the carbon, lime, phosphorus, sulphur, potash, and the like.

Quite right, and some other day we may have a talk about the varieties of manures, and the way of tilling the soil, especially in relation to Australian farming. But it is now time for us to return home. So come along, my boy.

* * * * *

It was not until a few days had passed, that Willie’s father was at leisure to give another lesson. During that interval the boy had not been idle. He had roamed over the Bush, and stored up lots of specimens of the vegetable world. There were many varieties of roots in one place, and of bark in another. He had cut open many a plant to try to observe some of the peculiarities of which his father had told him. The leaves being so perishable, rather bothered him in his researches, till his mother showed him how to preserve them, by placing them between sheets of blotting or other soft paper, and changing the wrapper occasionally. Willie himself was astonished at his collection, and greatly surprised at the many kinds of leaves he had obtained. Having some notion of drawing, he set about copying a few of the most curious forms, especially in cases where he thought the pressure would spoil the appearance. His good father, as you may be sure, was quite delighted at his son’s industrious research.

One thought had all this while very much perplexed our young friend. He had a fair notion of the causes of the growth of a tree after it had begun to grow; that which puzzled him was, how the tree arose from a seed, and how the seed itself was produced. He unburdened his mind to his father.

To describe this subject, said the father, I must give you the history of a flower.

I used to think, father, that the flowers were only formed to please our eyes, and yet I knew the seeds had something or other to do with them.

You are partly right. There was no reason for flowers to be pretty, any more than for butterflies. But it has pleased God to put the beautiful along with the useful. He has thus adorned this world for our home, that his creatures may be the happier in it. You have doubtless observed that flowers are as various as leaves.

I have done so, and I remarked that the same sort of plant always produced the same kind of blossom, year after year, just as birds lay certain eggs of their own sort only. How is this?

No one can answer that question, except by saying that God has established fixed laws, according to which everything acts in order. The planets turn round the sun, the sun appears every morning; plants and animals produce their like, and everything that God has made moves in its proper path.

Except men and women, father. And yet I think if stars and flowers know and do their duty, we should be at least as good as they.

Now for the flowers, Willie. What do you see in them?

There are the pretty leaves, the common-looking green leaves outside of them, and a lot of things standing upright in the middle of the flower.