I20 GLIMPSES IXTO PLAXT-LIFE 



Another reason for their fall is, that their year's 

 work is done. Like good servants, they have been 

 hard at work all through the summer and autumn 

 months, taking in stores of nourishment for the 

 benefit of the tree, and giving out volumes of 

 oxygen, so helpful for the maintenance of human 

 life. They have secured and laid up sufficient 

 nutriment for the development of the next year's 

 buds, and having done this, their special office 

 being at an end, they fall beneath the tree to 

 become leaf-mould, which, in its turn when fully 

 decayed, will yield nourishing elements to be 

 carried by the winter and sprhig rains to the tree 

 roots. 



I might add man)' more useful objects which 

 we owe to trees, and I commend it to my young 

 readers as an instructive study to try and make 

 out a complete list of the useful products of our 

 English trees. I imagine we do not }-et know 

 all that might be obtained from them, new dis- 

 coveries continue to re\eal their \aluc in the way 

 of medicines ; for instance, the crystals of the 

 willow (called salicine) are now frequently pre- 

 scribed as a remedy for rheumatism. Euonomine 



