Books, tires, and string
The next time you read a book, ride a bicycle, or fly a kite, thank the
plants. Without them, you might not be able to do any of those things.
The paper in most books comes from trees. To make paper, wood chips from
trees are cooked into a soupy pulp. Then this mixture is squeezed into
sheets and dried. Rags of linen or cotton, which also come from plants,
are used to make very fine paper.
Bicycle tires and many other things are made from natural or artificial
rubber. Natural rubber comes from the milky, white juice of the rubber
tree. When the juice is taken from the tree it becomes hard and bouncy.
Artificial rubber is made from chemicals, but some of the chemicals come
from plants, too.
Kite string is usually made from cotton, which comes from the long
threads on seeds of the cotton plant. But most string and rope is made
from the veins, called fibers, of long plant leaves. These fibers are
removed from the leaves and dried. Then they are twisted together to
make rope, string, cord, or twine.
sisal plants
These swordlike sisal leaves will be used to make string and rope.
Rubber comes from the juice that flows when a rubber tree is cut.
rubber tree
