606 NATURE STUDY. 



THE WORK OF THE LEAVES. 



" We got two pieces of grass and one was yellow and the other was 

 green. The yellow piece of grass was under a stick and the green 

 piece was out in the sun and light. The sun keeps the factories ago- 

 ing. The leaf green factories make starch. They make starch and 

 the starch factories do. They eat and drink like us and if they were 

 in a dark place they would get pale and sick and so would we. The 

 little pieces of grass make the starch out of air and water and they eat 

 the starch. The light makes the engines go and the engines make 

 the machines go. " WILLIE ALLEN, THIRD GRADE. 



WHAT THE LEAVES Do. 



" WTien we take up a board the grass under it is white. When our 

 mothers put plants in the cellar they turn white. The cellar hides 

 the light. We look at our beans. They are looking toward the win- 

 dow. The leaves get light for the plant. They can get light because 

 they are large and they don't lap over each other. When they are one 

 on each side of the stem they are opposite. When there is one and then 

 another they are alternate. We need air to live, so do plants need air 

 to live. Plants do not breathe good air, they breathe bad air. We 

 breathe good air so there is not enough good air for the plants. They 

 say that it is healthy for plants to be where there is a good many peo- 

 ple. There is little holes in the back of the leaf and they breathe 

 through them. If those little holes were closed they would die. We 

 breathe through our lungs." CARL CARTER, THIRD GRADE. 



WHAT LEAVES Do. 



"Miss Schiller got a piece of sod under a plank. The leaves on 

 the grass was yellow because the sun didn't shine on it. And all 

 plants in the dark the leaves turn yellow. The plants in the window 

 box are green because the sun shines on them. In each leaf we find 

 stuff called green leaf paste or jelly or paste which is leaf green. We 

 called the leaf the kitchen. We call the sun the fire. The leaf green 

 lives in all parts of the leaf. The leaf green works in the day. The 

 sunlight colors the leaves green. The sun and the leaf green work 

 together. Leaf green and the sun make their own food. The root 

 soaks up the water and the bad air that we breathe out the leaf takes 

 in. The sun and leaf green changes the water in the leaf and the air 

 they breathe into food." JAMES GRIGGS. 



