Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1909-10-20
said a grszzled and sunpurnt man
Detroit ,News-Tribune.
HOW THE LBAvms work.

en- know what a leaf Is? No doubt
many of them do, for, little folk are
very wise in these days and learn
many delightful things that their
fathers and mothers never heard of,
but most grown people do not. They
know, of course, that the broad, thin.
green things that grow on plants and
make the earth SO beautiful are
leaves. but they do not know that
everything that is not stem or root
is leaf. The petals and stamens
and pistils of flowers, the wrappings
of buds, tendrils and thorns-when
they are not stems in disguise-and
even fruits, all these, the botanists
tells us, are leaves. The halves Of
bean or a nut, as we saw last week.
are also leaves. stuffed full Of food,
and 1T Is the thickened bases If lily
and onion leaves that make the bulbs
of those plants. Some of these things
we can quite easily see for ourselves.
II We plant the bean, the two halves
soon empty themselves of food, and
by the time they have pushed their
way out OF the earth they look like
ordinary leaves. Sometimes among
the petals of flower we find
a leaf that has forgotten to put on
its best clothes, and very often we
can find petals that ara only half
dressed. Sometimes evrn the pistil
forgets what 1t is about and grows
into whole branch of green leaves
The reason the lea yes look SO diff
ferent is because they have different
things to do. Those that do the eat
ing for the rest Of the plant have
to be green. because for some reason
that scientists have never been able
to explain they can only eat when
they are filed with the green color.
ing matter that we call chlorophyl
and they have to be thin and broad,
because they cannot eat without SUI.
light any more than they can without
chlorophyl, and because most of their
FOOD comes from the air. In order
to catch as much air and sunlight as
possible, therefore, they spread out
the material Of which they are COM
posed over as wide space as posi-.
BILE and cut themselves up into all
sorts of complicated and beautiful
forms. Fruits and other sorts OF
leaves do not have to do this, and can
grow into round balls If they choose.
Leaves are often called the lungs
of trees, but they are not quite that.
They are little food factories which
run at top speed as long as the sun
is shining. Plants have to manufac.
ture their food out of the raw dead
materials of earth, water and air. No
animal can do this, and SO we are all
dependent for an existence upon the
green leaves.
The food-making Of the plants is
a very complicated business, but the
little folk who have studied chemistry
can perhaps understand as much
about It as anybody does. The leaves
breathe in from the air the carbon
doxide which animals breathe OF and
which is poison to them. They
separate this into carbon and oxy.
gen. and unite the carbon with the
hydrogen and oxygen from the water
which the roots send up. The result
is starch, and the oxygen that is
left is breathed back into the air.
Thus the plants purify the air for
us, besides making our food. When
plants grow in water we can see the
slife-giying oxygen which they breathe
out rising in bubbles to the surface,
and when they are very small and
fioat at the surface OF the water the
bubbles OF oxygen become entangled
among them and form frothy, green
scum. After making the starch the
leaves change 1t into fluid glucose. SO
that 1t can be carried through the
plant: When 1t isn't wanted for i'm
mediate use 1t is changed back into
starch again and stored up to feed
baby leaves and flowers next spring.
Other foods. too, the plants make, us.
ing nitrogen partly from the soil and
partly from the air-and other ma.
terials. OF these nitrogen Is the
most important, and when the plant
has used up all there is in the soil
the farmer has to put on fertilizers.
The water that is not needed for
the food factory Is breathed OF
through thousands of little openings
which are usually found on the low
er side of the leaf. These are stom-
alta, which is simply Greek for
mouths. These mouths have lips,
which close up tightly in dry wealth
er to prevent the water from escap-
ing, and there may be as many as
one hundred thousand OF them to the
square inch. The water that eyap.
crates through the stomata, of course.
leaves an empty space, or, as we say
In Latin, vacuum, and, of course,
all the little folks know that nature
will not tolerate vacuum. So the
water behind the vacuum rushes in
to fill 1t, and then there is another
vacuum to be filed, and SO all the
way down to the roots. That is why
the water rises in plant from the
roots to the leaves, and It is for
precisely the same reason that water
rises in pump. The leaves are Att
tie pumps, then. as well as food fac,
tories. They look as II they had
nothing in the world to do but bask
in the sunlight and play with the
summer breezes, but there are no
buster things in nature, and life on
this planet depends on their indus.
try If they should go on strike there
would soon be no little men or little
Women left to read this page, and no
page for them to read, either.-Eliz
beth Gudderidge, in the New York
Tribune.
The Tragedy Of the Trees.
The ravages OF the elm tree pest
and the leopard moth among the fine
old trees around Harvard university
give p4llsa for much onnrohapS