IX 

 LEAVES IN SPRING. SUMMER AND AUTUMN.* 



The yearly miracle of the appearance of in- 

 numerable shades and hues of green in awak- 

 ening vegetation , exerts a mysterious influence 

 amounting to fascination over the human 

 race. A fascination made strong by the in- 

 herited experience of untold generations of 

 forest-dwelling ancestors, reaching backward 

 the entire present geologic period, and which 

 grows in intensity as we creep from the crea- 

 tion to millenium. 



Our vague and emotional inherited interest 

 in the annual revivification of the vegetable 

 w^orld becomes vividly intense and direct, 

 however, when it is learned that the universal 

 blush of green is due to the most important 

 coloring substance in the world — chlorophyll. 



*Adapted from "Green Color of Plants," Jf a rper's Magazine, 

 April, 1897, and "Autumn Leaves," same journal, October, 

 1897. 



