Zbc Storg of tbe IRoot 9 



and drink come to us from vegetable-eaters. We 

 use fish largely ; these feed immediately or remotely 

 upon vegetables. 



An ample proportion of our medicines, oint- 

 ments, and other healing agents come to us from 

 jDlants. 



To the plant world we look for a large amount of 

 our clothes, as linen and cotton directly ; silk from 

 the mulberry-fed silk-worm ; wool from the grass- 

 eating sheep ; leather from vegetable-devouring 

 mammals. 



The plant world affords us fuel, immediately as 

 wood, or remotely from the coal beds, which once 

 were forests. 



Our houses and our furniture are largely of 

 wood, contributed by the plant world. Our horses 

 and oxen serve us with strength supplied by plant- 

 food. The presence of vegetation increases that 

 downfall of rain which fills our springs, wells, 

 streams, cisterns. 



The plants, with their million million busy 

 mouths, devour from the air seeds of pestilence, 

 converting them into beauty and utility ; they pour 

 into our atmosphere oxygen, and sip out of it 

 noxious carbonic acid gas. Thus on every hand, for 

 the luxuries and the necessities of our lives, we are 

 debtors to the plant. 



