They are tired and want to sleep. They fear the heat and dryness of the summer. They do not want to be crowded by the other plants that are beginning to look out everywhere. “We will go to sleep and let the other plants have our places; we have had our share of the air and the water and the dear sunshine,” they seem to say. “We have caught the sunbeams and stored them away in our bulbs and roots, and we will now rest.” [Illustration: [Flower]] So they go to sleep. They open the channels from the leaves to the bulbs and the underground stems, and then all the living part of the leaves passes quickly down into the part that lies underground. There is only left the hard framework of the leaves. This is not alive; it never was alive. The living part of the leaf built it for a house to live and do its work in; now the house is empty: the living part has run down into the bulb or the underground stem. The part of the leaf that is left soon falls to pieces, as any old abandoned house will do. It falls on the ground; the rain soaks it, and it crumbles apart. It changes into food for other plants. It is not lost; it is taken up by other plants and again built into good plant material. [Illustration: [Seed-pods]] So it is with the seed-pods; when the seeds fall out, the part that is left behind is not alive. All the living part has gone out of the dry pods down into the bulbs or the underground stems; and the pods, too, crumble to pieces and make good food for other plants. But the seeds are alive. They lie in the earth and wait for the time to come when they may wake up and make new plants with young bulbs or thick underground stems. But how about the roses? Do they not die in the fall? Why, what are you thinking of? Do they not wake up next spring and cover their stems with leaves and flowers? Dead bushes could not do so. You see how it is. The leaves work all summer long. They store up food in the roots and the stems. When the frost comes and pinches them, they know it is time to stop work and go to sleep for the winter. They have roots down in the ground. And now you know as well as I do how they manage it. When the leaves have done their work and fed the flowers and the stems and the seeds, and when the stems and the roots are stored full of food, the leaves stop working. The green little cells that made them so bright all summer go away; the living part of the plant and the rich juices find their way into the roots and stems. Only the dead frames of the houses that the living parts of the leaves built in which to do their work are left. They are dry and lifeless; they never were alive. The living protoplasm has left them and unhinged them so that they soon fall off.