Knowledge of nature increases our enjoyment of it.
So I have told you in this book many things about trees and plants. And I suppose that you will look at them with more pleasure now than you did before you knew so much about them. Almost every body says when looking at a handsome plant or tree, how beautiful it is! But you will say something more than this. You will say how beautiful and howwonderfultoo! You think of the sap going up and down in the pipes, of the busy mouths in the roots drinking it up from the ground, of the many different things that are made from the sap, of the beautiful leaves acting as the lungs of the plant, and of the leaf-buds from which the leaves are made. And because you know something about all these things, plants and trees look more beautiful to you than they ever did before.
You have always admired the weeping-willow with its long branches hanging almost to the ground. But you admire it much more now, because you think how wonderful it is that the sap circulates back and forth in the trailing branches. Follow it as I have told you that it goes, and see how wonderful the circulation of the sap is in this tree. It goes from the roots up through the trunk, and down the trailing branches to the very tips of the leaves; and then it mounts up again through other pipes in the branches to the trunk, that it may go down again to the roots.As you think of all this, do not the beautiful branches, as they swing back and forth in the wind, look more beautiful than ever?
Flowers and leaves.
You have always loved to look at flowers with their various colors. But now you love them more than ever, because you know something about how they grow, and what their colors and perfumes are made from, and many other interesting facts about them. Even fruits will, I think, taste better to you, for what you have learned about them in this book.
Leaves are such common things that most people do not know how beautiful they are. From what I have told you about them, I think you will always be ready to examine them, and see what a variety of beauty there is in the leaves of different trees and plants. And when you think what is done in the leaves, and how the sap comes continually to them to be aired, you admire them more than they do who think of them merely as pretty green things.
Think of a leaf asmade, for growing is making. No one can make leaves but God. But suppose that a man could make leaves and put them on a tree. It would take him his whole life to cover a tree of any size with leaves. But God, as I have told you, makes the leaves out of sap on all the plants and trees. He sends to them the warm breezes of spring, and sets the sap running in the pipes, and then the buds come out, and from them are formed the leaves. What a busy workshop, as you may say, is every plant and tree in the spring when all the leaves are making!
I have told you about the wonderful change that we see in plants and trees year by year. What multitudes of leaves andflowers fall to the ground every year and decay! What a waste, as it seems, of beautiful things! But are they really wasted? Oh no! God, as I have told you, can make again from these decayed leaves and flowers other leaves and flowers just as beautiful as these once were.
Changes in winter and spring.
How wonderful this is! Look out in summer, and see on trees, and shrubs, and plants, flowers of every color mingled with the green leaves. What a world of varied beauty you behold! You can not believe that all this will be soon gone. But wait a little and there are no leaves nor flowers. All is bare and dreary. The leaves and flowers have fallen in all their beauty, and the snow covers them as with a winding-sheet.
“Seed-time and harvest shall not cease.”
Is it possible that all this beauty that we have seen thus buried can be revived again? Will the green grass again appear? Will these bare trees and shrubs again be covered with leaves and blossoms, and will the flowers again spring up? Oh yes! We have seen God do all this year after year, with the sunshine, and the rain, and the dew of spring; and he will do it again, for he has said that “seed-time and harvest shall not cease.”
Questions.—With what thoughts and feelings will what you have learned in this book make you look at plants and trees? What is said about the weeping-willow? What about flowers and fruits? What about leaves? What is said about leaves beingmade? What is said of the change that you see every year in plants and trees? Tell about the change from summer to winter, and then from winter to summer.
Questions.—With what thoughts and feelings will what you have learned in this book make you look at plants and trees? What is said about the weeping-willow? What about flowers and fruits? What about leaves? What is said about leaves beingmade? What is said of the change that you see every year in plants and trees? Tell about the change from summer to winter, and then from winter to summer.
THE END.
FOR THE USE OF
FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS.
INTENDED TO AID MOTHERS AND TEACHERS IN TRAINING CHILDRENIN THE OBSERVATION OF NATURE.
IN THREE PARTS.PART II.—ANIMALS.
ByWORTHINGTON HOOKER, M.D.,
AUTHOR OF “FIRST BOOK IN CHEMISTRY,” “CHEMISTRY,”“NATURAL PHILOSOPHY,” “NATURAL HISTORY,” ETC.
With Illustrations.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1882.
THE CHILD’S BOOK OF NATURE.
FOR THE USE OF
FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS.
INTENDED TO AID MOTHERS AND TEACHERS IN TRAINING CHILDREN
IN THE OBSERVATION OF NATURE.
IN THREE PARTS.
By Dr. WORTHINGTON HOOKER.
THE CHILD’S BOOK OF NATURE. For the Use of Families and Schools; intended to aid Mothers and Teachers in training Children in the Observation of Nature. In three Parts. Illustrations. The Three Parts complete in one vol., Small 4to, Cloth, $1 00; Separately, Cloth, Part I., 40 cents; Parts II. and III., 44 cents each.
Part I.PLANTS.—Part II.ANIMALS—Part III.AIR, WATER, HEAT, LIGHT, &c.
FIRST BOOK IN CHEMISTRY. For the Use of Schools and Families. Revised Edition. Illustrations. Square 4to, Cloth, 44 cents.
NATURAL HISTORY. For the Use of Schools and Families. Illustrated by nearly 300 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents.
SCIENCE FOR THE SCHOOL AND FAMILY.
Part I.NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Illustrated by nearly 300 Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents.
Part II.CHEMISTRY. Revised Edition. Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents.
Part III.MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY. Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents.
Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, N. Y.
☞Either of the above volumes will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, byHarper & Brothers, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District Court of New York.