Every thing that you see in a tree or a
plant, is made from the sap. The bark, the wood, the leaves,
the flowers, the fruit, are all made from it. Even the root
that sucks up the sap from the ground, is made out of the sap
itself.
It is strange that so many different
things can be made out of the same thing. It is strange that a
rough bark and hard wood can be made out of the same thing
with the beautiful flower and the delicious fruit. Look at a
peach-blossom, and look at the bark of the tree, and think of
them as being made out of the same sap. You can hardly believe
that it is so. How strange it is to think of the sharp thorn
on a rose-bush as being made out of the same sap that makes
the soft, and smooth, and beautiful leaves of the rose!
If any man should tell you that he could
make a brick, and a piece of cloth, with beautifully colored
figures on it, out of the same thing, you would say he was
crazy. But there is not as much difference between the brick
and the cloth, as there is between rude bark and a flower,
made from the same sap. The Creator does, in the most common
plants and trees, what man can not equal in any way.
There are some things made out of sap
that I have said nothing about as yet. There are many bitter,
and sweet, and sour things made out of sap. Sometimes sweet
and bitter things are made together at the same time out of
the same sap. You see this in the orange. Out of the same sap
that comes to the orange through the stem, are made the sweet
juice and the sharp and bitter peel.
Almost all our sugar comes from the
sugar-cane. This is shaped like the stalks of corn. The sugar
is made from the sap that comes up in the pipes of the cane
from the ground. The cane, then, is really a sugar factory.
Man does not make the sugar, but it is made for him in the
cane. It is in the juice of the cane. This juice is mostly
sugar and water. In making sugar, as it is called, the sugar
is not made; it is only separated from the water and other
things with which it is mixed in the cane.
Perhaps you have seen maple-sugar. This
comes from a tree called the sugar-maple. The sugar is in the
sap, just as it is in the case of the sugar-cane. The sap is
obtained early in the spring, by tapping the trees, and then
it is boiled down, as it is called. In this boiling the water
goes off in steam and leaves the sugar behind. The
sugar-maple, then, is a sugar-factory as well as the
sugar-cane.
There are many roots in which there is
sugar. Sugar has often been obtained from a kind of beet,
called the sugar-beet. There is sugar in many fruits, making
them sweet to the taste.
Now, where does the sugar in the
sugar-cane, the maple, the beet, etc., come from.? The sap, in
which the sugar is, comes up from the roots. You will say,
then, that the little mouths in the roots suck up sugar from
the ground. But there is no sugar in the ground. No one ever
found any there. Take up a handful of earth, smell of it, and
taste of it. There is no sweetness in it.
Though there is no sugar in the ground,
what the sugar is made out of is there. This the little mouths
in the root drink up, and it is made into sugar in the plant.
You see, then, how true it is, that the plant is a
sugar-factory.
Now, do you think that any man could, in
any way, make sugar from the earth under his feet? He can no
more do it than he can make a flower or a leaf.
There are a great many other things made
by plants out of what they suck up from the earth. I will
mention more of them.
Some plants are starch-factories. They
make the starch from the sap that comes up from the root, just
as the sugar is made. There is starch in every kind of grain,
in potatoes, and in many other roots.
Some plants are medicine-factories.
Camphor is obtained from the bark and wood of a tree. Opium is
found in the different kinds of poppies. There are various
bitter medicines that are found in different plants.
Castor-oil is obtained from the seed of a large plant. These,
and various other medicines are made from sap.
Some plants are gum-factories. You have
sometimes seen gum on the bark of peach-trees and pine-trees,
when the bark has been wounded in some way. Now, there are
some kinds of trees in which there is a great deal of gum. The
India-rubber is a gum that is obtained from some kinds of
trees in warm climates. When the bark of these trees is
broken, this gum oozes out. It is collected as it flows. It is
dried in smoke, and this gives it its dark appearance.
Many trees are perfume-factories. The
perfumes are made most often in the flowers, but they are
sometimes made in the leaves, and other parts. You know how
fragrant the leaves of the geranium are. Even wood is
sometimes fragrant. The sandal-wood is very much so.
Some plants are color-factories. They
not only make color for their own use--that is, to color their
flowers--but they make them for us to use. Many of our dyes,
with which we color cloths, come from plants. They are made in
the plants from the sap that comes up from the ground. It
seems strange that the blue indigo should be made out of what
a plant drinks up from the brown, dull earth. But it is so.
Now, just think over the various things
that are made out of the sap in plants. There are wood, bark,
leaves, flowers, fruits, thorns, perfumes, colorings, sugar,
starch, gum, various medicines, etc. And then, there are many
other things that I have not mentioned. How strange it is that
so many, and such different things, can be made from what the
plants suck up out of the earth! As you look at the ground
under your feet, you can hardly believe that so much can be
got out of it. It is the busy little mouths in the roots that
get from it what is needed to make all these different things.
