Quotes from Richard M. Ketchum

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated.

A plant has been defined as a living thing that absorbs in microscopic amounts over its surface all that it needs for growth. Through

food chain - the vitally important system by which matter from soil and air passes through plants and animals and back to soil and air. It is this system upon which all life depends.

By the time a tree is full-grown, the underground root system is enormous; a mature oak tree, for example, has literally hundreds of miles of roots to tap the soil's resources in an endless quest for water. Each drop is collected by the root hairs and passed along, from one cell to the next, up the trunk and to the leaves, and in such a way that none of the precious moisture and minerals collected by the roots leaks back into the soil.

The most important surviving relics of the primitive plants are mosses and ferns, which give us a clue to how ancient plants solved the problem of reproduction. They developed spores, or microscopic cells, which fell into the water, germinated, and formed male and female sex organisms that combined to create a new plant. Spores

Not many men ever saw Washington disturbed by bad news; it was much more likely to have the opposite effect on him, acting like a goad that brought out the best in his character, stiffening his resolve to win against odds that would have defeated a less resolute man before he began.

Photosynthesis, the activity that ultimately makes all life possible, permits plants to trap energy from the sun and store it in the form of glucose, or sugar, for their growth. To make one molecule of sugar requires six molecules of water and six of carbon dioxide, taken from the air. When these are combined with the energy from the sun's light, glucose is formed - to be stored within the plant - and oxygen and carbon dioxide are released into the air. As

We know a great deal more than the Greeks did about the forces of life. But with all our knowledge, no one fully comprehends the miraculous process, known as photosynthesis, by which trees and other green plants use energy from the sun to transform elements into food for themselves at the same time that they release oxygen into the atmosphere. Photosynthesis makes life on Earth possible, and it is the most important function performed by green plants of all kinds.