PRODUCTIVE GARDENING 89 



one Arctic Circle to the other and around the 

 circumference of the globe, plants of every tribe 

 (with the rare exception of parasites which take 

 food predigested by the green plants), from the 

 minutest creeper to the most gigantic sequoia or 

 palm or eucalyptus, have leaves of the same pri- 

 mary color. 



And the reason for this is that the leaf derives 

 its color from the massed effect of little struc- 

 tures called chlorophyll granules that nestle 

 in its individual cells, constituting the really 

 essential part of its food-forming laboratory, 

 where, under the influence of the photosynthetic 

 action of light, inorganic are transformed into 

 organic substances. These have adopted a green 

 uniform as the insignia of their office, and they 

 hold as rigidly to this color as if their very lives 

 depended upon it. And for aught we know to 

 the contrary, their lives may depend on it; for 

 no one has yet been wise enough to say just what 

 relation the color bears to the wizardlike pow T ers 

 of the so-called chlorophyll granules that wear 

 it, and that, seemingly with its aid, effect the 

 marvelous transformation of inorganic elements 

 into foodstuffs of which they alone of all created 

 things are capable. 



No one knows just what relation the green 

 color of the chlorophyll granules bear to their 



