HOW THE SEASONS AFFECT PLANTS AND ANIMALS We have found that plants need food, water, and sunshine. Plants get their food from the soil.
Animals need food and water, and the most of them love sunlight, but there are some that hide away from it. Many of the animals get their food from plants, but some feed upon other animals that they can kill.
Everything that lives has its time to rest and sleep. When do you suppose that time is? Can it be in the winter or in the summer, or is it at night? If you said any one of these, you would be partly right.
Most plants and some of the animals sleep a part of each year. The time which they take to sleep depends upon the climate of the place in which they live. The most of the animals sleep a part of each day or night. Plants do not grow as fast at night as they do in the daylight.
In cold countries plants sleep in the winter. We know they are going to sleep when their leaves begin to fall. When the cold winter comes they stand so bare that they look as though they were dead.
When the trees begin to feel the warmer days of spring the sap starts again from their roots. It goes up the trunk of the tree and into each tiny branch. The waiting buds soon commence to swell. Almost before we know it the trees are again dressed in green.
The children all know that spring has come when they can find the pussy willows. The willow is one of the first trees to wake up and open its little blossoms.
Many plants do not live through the winter. Each spring a new plant grows from the little seed. Very soon we see it blossom. When it is fall and
the cooler weather drives away the summer, the seeds are ripe and the first frosts kill the mother plant.
In warm countries plants sleep during the dry season. If summer is the dry season, then they grow in the winter. Such a country is green and beautiful in the winter. In summer the ground becomes dry and the whole world seems dead.
There are many animals that crawl into their holes and go to sleep when fall comes. They do not move until spring wakes them. The first warm day brings them out of their winter home. The earth, the water and the air are full of life, where a little time before everything seemed dead.
Every plant and every animal is suited to the place in which you find it living. If you carry an animal or plant away from its home you must give it a new home much like the old one. If you do not it will die. The animals in the cold north cannot stand the heat of the south. A plant which is used to having a great deal of water will not live where there is little water° The birds do not stay in one place through the year. When winter comes they go toward the south. In the spring they return to their northen homes where they make their nests and raise the young birds.
People do not move back and forth as the seasons change. They put on warmer clothing for the winter and store up food to eat. Some animals do the same. Their hair grows longer and thicker and thus they are protected from the cold.