72 IMPOKTANOE OP LEAVES. 



other parts of a plant is in proportion to the health of leaves, Tnere is 

 no real exception, and the neglect of it is the fciiitM parent of failures. 

 Nature has given plants leaves not merely to decorate them or to 

 shade us, but as a part of a wondrous system of life quite as perfect as 

 that of the animal kingdom. It would be of no use for a plant to suck 

 food out of the earth by its roots, unless there was some place provided 

 in which such food, consisting principally of water and mucUage, could 

 be digested, aud so converted into the matter which maintains the 

 health of the individual. The stem cannot do this ; firstly, because it 

 is a mere channel through which" fluids pass ; and secondly, because 

 many plants have no visible stem, as in the instance of the Primrose ; 

 and yet in all such cases the plant feeds and m\ist digest its food. It 

 is to the leaves that this important office is assigned, and to enable 

 them to execute it God has formed them with wisdom no less infinite 

 than has been displayed in the creation of man. The leaves have veins 

 through which their fluids pass, and cells in which they are held while 

 digesting, myriads of little caverns through whose sides respiration is 

 maintained, a skin to g^ard them from the air, and pores for carrying 

 off perspiration. A leaf is, in fact, both a stomach and lungs ; and to 

 destroy it, is to do the same injury to a plant as would be effected in 

 an animal by the destruction of the parts to which those names are 

 given. Of this we may be certain, that neither taste, perfume, colour, 

 size, nor any other property, can be given to a plant except through 

 the assistance of the leaves ; and that the more numerous these are, the 

 larger, and the more luxuriant, so, within certain limits, wiU be aU 

 that a plant is capable of forming. Strip the leaves off a tree, and no 

 more wood wiU appear until the leaves are restored; feed its roots in 

 the hope of thus compensating for the loss of its leaves, and the stem 

 will be fiMed indeed with watery matter, but the latter wiU collect in 

 the interior untH it forces its way through the bark, and runs down in 

 putrid streams, as happens to the Mulberry-tree when it is incessantly 

 stripped for sUk-worms, and as occurs to trees whose leaves are con- 

 tinually destroyed by a noxious atmosphere. Strip the ripening 

 Grapes of their green garments, and no colour or sweetness will be 

 coUeoted in their berries. Rob the Potato of its foUage, and you wiU 

 seek in vain for nourishment in its tubers ; and so of aU things else. 

 On the other hand, leave the Mulberry, the Vine, and the Potato unin- 

 jured, to the genial influence of the sun and the air, and the dews of 

 heaven, and wood is formed in the one case, sugar and colour in the 

 other— and flour, the staff of Kfe, in the last: and these products will 

 all be in exact proportion to the health and abundance of the foliage. 

 Why then mow off the leaves of Strawberry plants in the autumn aS 

 some do ?— the only effect of which must be to rob the plants of the 

 materials out of which the fruit of the succeeding year is to be pro- 

 duced, and to destroy the natural protection afforded duiing winter by 



