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Certain cells in the plant are trained from birth for 
this special work, —the work of getting possession of 
the carbon needed for plant food. These little cells 
take in the carbonic-acid gas from the air; then they 
break it up, tearing the carbon from the close embrace 
of the oxygen, pushing the oxygen back into the air it 
came from, and turning the carbon over to the plant 
to be stored away till needed as food. 
Only certain cells can do this special piece of work. 
Only the cells which hold the green substance that 
colors the leaf can tear apart carbonic-acid gas. Every 
little cell which holds a bit of this leaf green devotes 
itself to separating the carbon from the oxygen. 
Why this special power lies in a tiny speck of leat 
green we do not know. We only know that a cell 
without such an occupant is quite unable to break up 
carbonic-acid gas. 
But even the bit of leaf green in a tiny cell needs 
‘some help in its task. What aid does it call in, do you 
suppose, when it works to wrench apart the gas? 
In this work the partner of the bit of leaf green is 
nothing more or less than a sunbeam. Without the 
aid of a sunbeam, the imprisoned leaf green as8as 
helpless to steal the carbon as you or I would be. 
It sounds a good deal like a fairy story, does it not, — 
this story of Leaf Green and Sunbeam? 
Charcoal is made of carbon. About one half. of 
every plant is carbon. 
The coal we burn in our fireplaces is the carbon left 
upon the earth by plants that lived and died thousands 
of years ago. It is the carbon that Leaf Green and 
