Charles Guthoerl, age 12 of Pittsburgh, PA
Do fallen leaves really help the ground?
As summer comes to an end, the leaves of the oak and the elm, the beech and birch trees adorn themselves in candy colors and fall off their branches. The forest floor is spread with a crisp, multicolored carpet. The lawn and the sidewalks are littered with papery leaves, Mother Nature seems to be a very sloppy housekeeper, But this is far from true. Those fallen leaves have a place in the scheme of things and year by year they play a part in building up the soil for new generations of plants,
The leaves on the lawn look so untidy that anyone who is halfway neat wants to rake thane up into a pile and burn them. This tidy habit, however, may be working against Mother Nature, who has a plan for those fallen leaves, In the forest, where no one rakes them into neat piles to make fragrant bonfires, the leaves follow their natural destiny. They rot on the ground and became part of the rich soil.
In order to grow, a tree needs chemicals from the earth. These chemicals are dissolved in ground water and enter the tree with the water it takes in through its roots. Inside the tree, these chemicals are used to make all kinds of different substances, Same of them are built into the tiny cells from which the leaves are made, A tree must have these vital chemicals and, of course, it cannot go hunting for them. They must be in the ground,
Each year, the chemicals used by the tree are lost from the soil. If the forest is to grow year by year, they must be recycled. And some of these vital chemicals are salvaged from the fallen leaves. For decaying leaves break up into their original chemicals and the falling rain dissolves them and takes them creeping down deep into the soil.
The job of decay is a fascinating story done by hosts of tiny garbage men, most of them too small for our eyes to see. They are soil bacteria which work on the leaves to break them into smaller and smaller pieces.
As a rule, they work on the edges of the leaves, which is why decay is faster when the fallen leaves are chopped into small pieces.
It may take several years to turn this years fallen leaves into new plan=t food, but meantime they work to help the soil in other ways. Crumbly bits of decaying vegetation loosen the soil and make it porous. The roots of a tree also need the pockets of air and moisture which collect in the pores of this loamy soil.
But this is no excuse to throw away the garden rake, for a thick rug of fallen leaves may smother the grassy lawn. But perhaps we should stop burning our piles of old leaves. We might be more in line with Natures plan if we chopped them up and spread them around to mulch the soil. In time, they will return to the soil some, though not all, of the chemicals needed by new plants.