This picture would show the world some hundreds of years from now; for, although some plants live only a short time, others (and usually these are trees) live hundreds of years.
But in the picture even the last tree has died away. Upon the earth there is not one green, growing thing. The sun beats down upon the bare, brown deserts. It seems to scorch and blister the rocky mountain sides. There are no cool shadows where one can lie on a summer afternoon; no dark, ferny nooks, such as children love, down by the stream. But, after all, that does not matter much, for there are no children to search out such hidden, secret spots.
“No children! Why, what has happened to them?”
Well, if plants should stop having children (for the little young plants that come up each year are just the children of the big, grown-up plants), all other life—the life of all grown people, and of all children, and of all animals—would also come to an end.
Did you ever stop to think of this,—that your very life depended upon these plants and trees? You know that they are pretty to look at, and pleasant to play about; but I doubt if you ever realized before, that to them you owe your life.
Now let us see how this can be. What did you have this morning for breakfast?
Bread and milk? Well, of what is the bread made? Flour? Yes, and the flour is made from the seeds of the wheat. If the wheat stopped having seeds, you would stop having bread made from wheat seeds. That is plain enough.
Then the milk,—where does that come from?
“That comes from the cows, and cows are not plants,” you say.
True, cows are not plants, but what would happen to the cows if there were no plants? Do not cows live in the green meadows, where all day long they munch the grass plants? And would there be any green meadows and all-day banquets, in years to come, if the grass did not first flower, and then seed? So then, no grass, no cows, and you would be without milk as well as without bread for breakfast.