It would seem, therefore, that this slender tree, with a stem which at
the ground is only 7 inches in diameter, having a height of 39 feet,
and before it has any expanded leaves from whose united surfaces large
amounts of water might evaporate, is able to draw from the ground about
4 liters, or seven-eighths of a gallon of fluid every twenty-four hours.
That at all events was the amount flowing from this open tap in its
water system. Even the topmost branches of the tree had not become,
during the fifteen days, abnormally flaccid, so that, apparently, no
drainage of fluid from the upper portion of the tree had been taking
place. For a fortnight the tree apparently had been drawing, pumping,
sucking--I know not what word to use--nearly a gallon of fluid daily
from the soil in the neigborhood of its roots. This soil had only an
ordinary degree of dampness. It was not wet, still less was there any
actually fluid water to be seen. Indeed, usually all the adjacent soil
is of a dry kind, for we are on the plateau of a hill 265 feet above the
sea, and the level of the local water reservoir into which our wells dip
is about 80 feet below the surface.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160