THE POWER OF SUNLIGHT 105 



stems, either cooked or uncooked. We get it by eating 

 bread and pastry, cakes and puddings, made from the 

 flour of wheat or oats or other such growths. We get 

 it by eating animals which have lived on vegetable-food. 

 We get it by eating animals that have fed on other 

 animals which have lived on vegetable-food. 



So again and again we come back to the work of 

 leaves. Such numbers of substances, needful for the 

 support of life, have to reach us thus ! 



For neither we ourselves, nor animals in general, 

 have any power to take food-materials out of the soil, 

 or out of the atmosphere, and to use them as food. 

 Until they have been worked up by plants, and made 

 ready, we simply cannot use them. We depend entirely 

 on the Vegetable Kingdom to prepare them for us. 



IV — The Food that We eat 



Let us think of some of the different things that we 

 commonly take at breakfast or dinner, and try to find 

 at least one or two that have not been made ready for 

 our use by any plant. 



Somebody may suggest, " Salt ! " And we do get 

 that out of the sea or from rocks in the earth, ready 

 made. But though salt is good, we can hardly call it 

 " food." No one could live on salt for even a very 

 short time. 



What about Bread? That comes from Corn. The 

 raw materials, gathered out of earth and air by millions 

 and billions of Wheat-plants, are worked up by each 

 one separately into nourishing grains; and these are 

 ground to fine flour, and the flour is made into loaves 



