Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-12-12
miscellaneous.
The work Of the Green Leaves

The Work Of the Green Leaves
watched from the window the 9TH
er day the waving in the wind OF the leaves
of . poplar that had pushed up Its plume
like top above the silver naples around II
in the young grove in nv BACK yaid.
fell to musing on the wonderful operaaons
that those leaves were carrying on, and
not they alone, but every spear OF grass
as we'll in the lawn beneath, and thought
of the vast importance of those operations
to the farmer. No whirr or clank OF
machinery accompanies this work; as
the farmer walks through his fields OF
corn on bright summer day it is going
on most busily all around him. but no
sound of it will come to his ear, however
closely he may listen for it. Yet upon its
continuance day by day while the sun
shines not only all his gains but even the
existence of the whole animal creation de-
ponds. He NAV vex himself as he will
over the pressing practical questions OF
his business. how and when he shall pillow
and manure, and plant and reap, and how
he shall best manage his crops so that
while his farm loses none of its fertility he
shall gain something to lay out for his own
comfort. or lay up tor that old age which
| he as well as other toilers must provide
for; but let him plan never so wisely, 1t
will all amount to nothing without the
help of this green plant substance which
he never thinks to look upon as really
working for him. but only as promise of
80 much fodder for his cattle or of so
much corn or wheat to sell.
Each leaf and spear of grass IS a
real laboratory where chemical changes
are carried on. some of which the chemist
with his utmost skill and endeavor has
thus far in vain attempted to bring
about; and so much Of them as he can &C
complish is done in such roundabout, vi
client way, in striking contrast with the di-
rect and quiet course of the work in the
leaf, that he has no reason to be proud of
it. One of the beginnings Of this work is
the building up of grains of starch out of
water and carbonic acid and it is a re-
markable beginning, because the gap is
such wide one between the product and
the materials from which it is made; on
the one hand we have the organized starch
grain, having one shape in the cells of the
kernel of corn, another in wheat, another
in the potato. and so on through the whole
list of starch-yielding plants, and SUBJ
stance of the greatest importance as a
food or fodder constituent of the crops of
the farm; on the other hand there are the
lfeless and formless water and the poison
Gus carbonic acid gas-fortunntely present
in the atmosphere in far too small proper
ton to do any harm, but poisonous still las
many fatal descent into well has given
proof of. 1t is an old saying that nature
makes no leaps; but there is certainly a
long leap here.
This first step in the work is remark
able one, too, because there seems to be
so little material tor the work; there is, of
course, an abundant supply of water; but
all the carbonic acid used is taken from
the atmosphere, although there is less
than five pounds of this kind of vege-
table building material in 10000
pounds of air. Ten tons of green corn fod-
der, containing about 1.120 pounds of
carbon, would require over 1000 pounds
of carbonic acid to supply this carbon !;
such draft would completely exhaust
the carbonic acid in layer of air $500
feet high; as vegetation would stop grow
ing freely long before the carbonic acid
was all used up, stratum of air much
higher than that would be necessary to
make good corn crop. But this quantity
of carbon is not all needed at once; only
a portion must be furnished each day, as
the corn grows supposing the period of
growth, from the time that it appears
above the ground till it is harvested, to be
80 days, then 80 pounds of carbonic acid
must be applied per day; but in stratum
of air five feet deep over an acre of ground
. l. Loo tbn, u, IL
stance.
If it were not for the constant circula-
ton that goes on among the constituents
of the atmosphere. in virture of which the
instant particle of any one OF these con-
stituents is removed, whether it be car
bonic acid or anything else, other particles
of the same kind rush in from the sur
rounding supply to fill its place, and for
the wind, which is so rarely still and is
ever bringing new and fresh supplies of
air within the reach of even the smallest
and humblest plant, it would fare hard
with our corn crops and much harder vet
with crops of more modest growth. which
would speedily starve, were not all the
carbonic acid that they require brought
down to them, within foot or less of the
surface of the ground 1t is easy to be-
| lieve the statement that in field tsur
rounded by thick woods, and where, con-
sequently. the air is rarely stirred by
breezes, some crops will not grow as well
as in more open spaces.
But this carbonic acid is not simply ia
ken into the plant and stored away in
some of its mutitudinous little chambers !:
carbonic acid, itself gas, is made up of
the solid element carbon and the gas oxy-
gen, the former familiar enough to all of
us as common charcoal, the latter as the
life giving constituent of the atmosphere :;
the plant wants only the carbon, with
which, in conjunction with water, to build
up its thousands on thousands of cell
chambers to be filed with starch, sugar,
fats, albuminoids, all of no less impor-
lance to the plant itself in which they are
| first produced. than to us who are so abso-
lutely dependent on the vegetable king
dom for all the materials wherewith to
feed the inner and clothe the outer man.
This separation of the carbon from the
oxygen, the chemist can bring about in
the labratory only with much difficulty
only by bringing to bear on the gas some
of the most powerful agents at his COM
mand, assisted by strong heat And f.
nally, when he has got his carbon he can
no more work it into cell wall than he
can build railroad to the moon, But let