The Arizona sentinel., 1886-06-12
NATURES WORKSHOP.

One of the Busiest and Yet Most Quiet Of Places-wonderful Workers That Never Make Mistakes.
 If you were to go out on one of these early spring days into a forest you would see that great work was going on there, though you could not hear sound save, perhaps, the rustic of a breeze among the branches, nor see any thing in motion except it might be a waving bough or a futtering leaf. But you would note that great and rapid change was coming over the scene before you. Where, but few weeks ago, the trees and shrubs and | the ground beneath were alike bare and brown, you would observe indica- tions of returning life and beauty. You would see on some trees and plants the red buds just starting, upon others the leaves half unfolded, and on the ground the blades of wild grass and the stalks of flowers pushing their way out of the layer of mold. 1t is evidently one of the busiest places that could possibly be imagined, and yet one of the most quiet There is no jar and whir of wheels, no hum of spindles and thud of looms. no grating sounds of files or saws, or hammers, and yet the most wonderful works of architecture are going up, the most curious patterns are being woven, and the most intri- cate pieces of workmanship are being put together.
 If our sight could penetrate the bod ies of the trees we could gain some knowledge of natures ways of work ing. We would see ascending through the most minute tubes, drawn up by some invisible power, countless num- Der of streams of a sweet watery sub- stance called sap. This sap is com posed principally of water drawn out of the earth by the roots of the trees and carrying with it certain substances which help to make the buds, leaves, flowers and the green, new wood. The sap may be properly called the life blood of plants, since its office is very much the same in plants as that of the blood in man and other animals, carry ing the life-sustaining properties to every part of the body. Like man and brutes, plants must have light and air III IO 1lfC. uC odp lIoOA WOulu not sustain the life of the plant, if it were not for the help it receives from the sunshine and the surrounding atmosphere, any more than the blood in an animal would keep it alive and vigorous if it were placed in a dark, air-tight room. Every plant has lungs, or organs which answer the purpose of lungs in drawing air into its body. Every leaf of plant has a countless number of little openings, or mouths, so small that you can only see them with a microscope. Through these mouths plants inhale various proper ties, of which the air is full, especially the gases they need to make them live Through them they also send out the air and gases from which they have taken all they require, and which have become impure and unfit to breathe. The sap which has come up from the roots into the leaves then meets with the air, and together they make won derful combinations of new material, which the sap carries back in its return journey to help build up other parts of the plant.
 We may imagine that the particles of sap are little servants or workmen whom Nature employs to build up the trees and shrubs and weave the tex ture of their leaves and flowers. Just follow, in imagination, one of these little workmen who are carrying up the materials to build the plants in some such way as you have seen other workmen carry the bricks and mortar to build the walls of house. This little burden-bearer gets his load of carbon and some other substances that are called for down in the dark ground, where Nature keeps her choicest stores, and then he goes quickly up the long winding stairways in the interior of the tree, up and up, leaving a little here ,, and little there, as he goes to the top most branch, and out into the little tender twig. where he leaves his load to help swell the bud and open the leaf.
 And one of the strangest things about this business is that these work men never make a mistake. Here are growing in small space a great vari- ety of trees and smaller plants of diff ferent general shape and texture, with different shaped leaves and flowers, s and bearing different kinds of fruit, yet all drawing their life from the same ground. The sweet violet and the poison ivy nestle at the foot of the oak, and obtain their supplies of nour- ishment from the same soil that sus- tains their giant protector. The little 1 workmen select from the same great store-house the material that is needed for each plant where they are appoint ! ed to work. They never make such ' blunder as to carry way up, to the top most twig of that maple particle that was intended to help form birct , tree; and as for carrying up bit o poison, intended for the laurel, into tht
 innocent petals of th, azalea, such z ! thing is really impossible. We may
 tr1st these workmen always, for they ,, never are disobedient to the grea . Architect of nature, under whose direc 2 ton they are employed.
 I And what an innumerable multitude
 of these little joiners and masons, paint
 CTS and master-builders, are at work il the forest to-day putting together al
 this wonderful architecture, these r massive. columns, these graceful arches
 these bowers of leaves and green pend