



IT MAY be the kind of tree, after all. 

 We plant Japanese maples for their 

 bronze, or red, or yellow color, and 

 they keep the same shade whether 

 they are in the , 

 City of Washing- =^ 

 ton or in the 

 State of Wash- 

 ington. The 

 Chinese gingko 

 turns to its 

 tawny yellow no 

 matter where it 

 grows. Take the 

 "wayfarer's tree" or viburnum; there are 

 many kinds over Europe, Asia, and Amer- 

 ica. In Europe, the leaves of all are 

 about the same color, simply green. 

 Many American kinds show beautiful 

 autumn tints. Virburnums from other 

 countries planted here, stay about as they 

 were where they came from, while our 

 viburnums, taken to other parts of the 

 world, turn quite as vivid in their strange 

 homes as they did here. 



Let us say, then, that something in the 

 tree makes the color, and that these color- 

 ful trees grow naturally in certain regions. 

 Scientists have long words to tell about 

 the color changes. I know one man who 

 has written a whole book about the 

 changes in just one kind of grape leaves; 

 and he thinks he does not know a great 

 deal about it, even yet. 



THE LEAF is not just a simple layer 

 like a sheet of paper, but has an 

 upper and lower, an inside and an 

 outside skin, with other layers be- 

 tween. We had seen how a locust-leaf 

 miner ate the inside out of the leaves and 

 left only the brown shell of the outer walls. 

 Another insect leaf-miner makes queer 

 light curlycue channels in the columbine 

 leaves of the flower-garden, by eating 

 out the green stuff between the upper 

 and lower layers. 



When the leaves have finished their 

 work, the useful green stuff, or " chloro- 

 phyll," breaks down and is sapped up. Cool 

 weather may hurry this process of dissolv- 

 ing the green part, but the changes would 

 take place just the same without frost. 



The good food for the tree, such as the 

 sugar of the sugar maple, passes from 

 the leaves back into the twigs and 

 branches, so that it is not lost. When 



the leaves fall, therefore, they are only the 

 shells of themselves. Part of the fearing 

 color of many trees, by which they really 

 seem to shine, is due to this. The sun- 

 light, no longer 

 stopped by the 

 shade-making 

 gr ee n, filters 

 through the 

 leaves, and 

 makes the bir- 

 ches seem to give 

 out a light of 

 their own. 

 In the passing of the food from the 

 leaves for storage in the stems, it must 

 be kept from the strong action of light; 

 it is thought that the changed color partly 

 helps this. The very young leaves of 

 many plants show these colors in early 

 spring. We see them in ruddy young 

 oak shoots, in unfolding maple leaves, in 

 the downy pinkish leaf buds of the grape. 

 There is said to be a need, also, of pro- 

 tecting the food material as it passes out 

 into the leaves. This may be one of the 

 purposes of " carotin," the yellow color in 

 plants. 



WHEN the foods have passed into 

 the tree, it has a clever way of 

 corking up the hole where the 

 leaf-stem was, and of sealing over 

 the place. Thus, when its work is done, 

 the door is closed behind the leaf, and it 

 can sail away. 



There's another good reason for the 

 fall of the leaves before the snows come ; 

 because if they did not let go, tons of 

 snow and ice would cling to them and 

 break the tree down, or at least crack off 

 its branches. 



SO WEjall agreed that Jack Frost had 

 been given too much credit, and that 

 the real facts were more wonderful 

 than the tales about Jack making 

 the leaves blush by his boldness or by 

 painting them with brush and palette. 



" I'm a-going to keep on singing that 

 song, just the samee," announced Toto, 

 " 'cause I like it! " 



" To be sure you are, " I agreed. " If 

 we sang only such songs as were written 

 in the cold light of science, we'd forget 

 how to carry a tune." 



And all together we sang about Jacky 

 Frost, to show that we bore him no ill will. 



»^< 



^^2 



