126 PICTURING MIRACLES 



cactus plant which serves the same purpose, we 

 could not get along without the Leaf and what it 

 brings to us. 



Man could not devise a better method of present- 

 ing innumerable comparatively small surfaces to the 

 sun than nature has in the arrangement of leaves 

 supported by branches reaching out in every direc- 

 tion. If the forest is dense the trees bearing the leaves 

 are tall; if only scattering, the branches are long. 

 Each leaf must have sunshine to do its part in fur- 

 nishing food for the whole tree or plant, so they 

 arrange themselves into such a position as to get the 

 maximum of sun required. We are accustomed to 

 thinking of trees as motionless things, except as 

 blown by the winds, and their growth so slow as 

 hardly to be taken into account. A student of plant 

 life realizes the opposite, and that a growing plant 

 is full of energy. A large tree swaying in the wind 

 is teeming with hidden life and undreamed of move- 

 ment. It may have some 500,000 leaves. Using this 

 formula 2}4 times the circumference squared plus 

 five times the circumference is equal to the number 

 of leaves of a full grown tree. "Believe it or not." 

 Count them if you don't. I will always look back 

 with pleasure to one of my very few and most bene- 

 ficial talks with the late Dr. Benedict, who was in 

 charge of the Botany Department of the University 



