212 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



able world confers upon man. Wherever we look, we 

 see in it our great resource ; even our railroads and our 

 mines could not exist, were we not masters of forests. 

 We would succumb to the cold of winter, food that be- 

 comes nutritious only by the aid of fire, would be useless, 

 the power of steam would not carry us from land to 

 land and over the broad ocean, if we had no trees. The 

 very destruction of plants is made necessary for their ex- 

 istence, for the wisdom and forethought of the Creator is 

 in this also manifest, that, whilst plants invest and orna- 

 ment the earth, animals browse and trim them to check 

 their luxuriance, so as to maintain the whole system of 

 creation in order and beauty. And yet this is but the 

 humblest purpose that plants serve on earth the hum- 

 blest because it only satisfies material requirements, how- 

 ever we ourselves may have refined and varnished them 

 over. Only in one point of view does this important end 

 of their existence obtain a higher value: 



It is true, plants are there for man, for the countless 

 poor, and God said : In the sweat of thy face shalt thou 

 eat bread ; thou shalt eat the herb of the field. But the 

 very curse of the Almighty has since been turned into 

 a blessing. If man does labor in the sweat of his brow, 

 to eat the herb of the field how abundantly is he re- 

 warded ! Of a mere thorn he has made, as if by enchant- 

 ment, the beautiful and fragrant rose. Before he thus 

 labored, the olive was dry and offensive, the peach bitter, 

 the pear had but a hard, woody flesh, and the apple-tree 

 was full of thorns. Man labored and the thorns fell, the 

 rose doubled and trebled its brilliant crown, the peach 



