You can keep a leaf from wilting for a long time by placing the stem in water. When you do this the water goes up through the little pipes in the stem. This takes the place of the water that goes out of the pores of the leaf.
When you put flowers in water, you know that the water is less the next day. This is because so much of the water goes up in the stems to the leaves and blossoms.
You know that if you have a plant in a flower-pot, the earth gets dry in a day or two. This is chiefly because the water in the earth is sucked up by the roots, and runs up all through the plant, and goes out of the pores of the leaves and blossoms. Some of the water goes up directly from the earth into the air, but most of it goes through the plant.
Much water in the air, but not seen.
You can not see the water that comes out of the leaves and blossoms into the air. There is a great deal of water in the air that you can not see. You have often seen in a hot day the water stand in drops on the outside of your tumbler. Just think how these drops come there. People sometimes say that the tumbler sweats, just as if the water came through the glass. But this, you know, can not be. Water can not get through glass. The drops come there in this way. The cold water in the tumbler makes the glass very cold. And the water in the warm air around the tumbler, therefore, gathers upon it. Sometimes there is much more water in the air than there is at other times. Then the tumbler is very wet. Now a great deal of the water in the air comes from the leaves of the trees and the plants all about us. The leaves may be said to be breathing moisture into the air all the time. I shall tell you more about the water that is in the air in Part Third.
This moisture that is breathed out from the leaves makes the air soft, while the fragrance of the flowers makes it balmy. Each leaf yields but a little water, and so does but little good in this way. But there are so many leaves that a great deal of water comes from all of them. It puts me in mind of the Scotch proverb, “Many a little makes a mickle.”
Lesson that can be learned from the leaves.
Those who want to do good in the world may learn a lesson from the leaves. A large amount of good may be done when a great many do each a little. Let those who can do but little think of this. Let them do every day what they can, just as each leaf does. Great men, that excite the wonder of the world, can do a great deal of good; but they can not do any thing like as much as is done by a great many people together that do each a little in a noiseless way. Every child, in doing little kind things, may, like the small leaf, do his part of the good that is to be done in the world. And if much of the good that he does is not noticed by others, God sees it all, just as he sees all the moisture that is breathed out by each little leaf.
Questions.—What makes the ribs of leaves firm? What happens to these ribs when a leaf wilts? How does the watery part of the sap get out of a picked leaf? What is said of the quantity of water that comes from leaves? Tell about the water in the leaf of the pitcher-plant. How does a picked leaf wilt? How does putting a leaf in water keep it from wilting? What makes the earth in a flower-pot become dry? Can you see the water that goes into the air from the leaves and other things? Tell about water settling on tumblers in hot weather. What lesson can we learn from the leaves?