bud, as some have imagined, since that will attract but a small quantity of nourishment. The great use of the leaves being to perspire away such crude juices as are unfit to enter the fruit."

In another part, after giving directions for pruning, he says, "When these rules are duly executed, there will be no occasion to pull off the leaves of trees to admit the sun to the fruit, which is too often practised; for if we consider that the leaves are absolutely necessary to cherish the blossom buds, which are always formed at the foot-stalks of the leaves, so by pulling them off before they have performed the office assigned them by Nature, is doing great injury to the trees, therefore I caution every one against this practice."

This author also says, "The Rev. Mr. Hales, in his excellent treatise of Vegetable Statics, speaking of the perspiration of Plants, gives an account of the following experiment; viz.

"That in July and August he cut off several branches of apple trees, cherry trees, pear trees, and apricot trees, two of a sort; they were of several sizes, from two to six inches long, with proportional lateral branches, and the transverse cut of the largest part of the stems was about an inch in diameter.

"That he stripped off the leaves of one bough of each sort, and then set the stems in several glasses, pouring in known quantities of water.

"The boughs with leaves on them imbibed, some fifteen, some twenty, twenty-five, or thirty ounces,

in twenty hours, day, more or less, in proportion to the quantity of leaves they had; and when he weighed them at night, they were lighter than in the morning.

"While those without leaves imbibed but one ounce, and were heavier in the evening than in the morning, they having perspired little.

"The quantity imbibed by those with leaves decreased very much every day; the sap vessels being probably shrunk at the tranverse cut, and too much saturated with water to let any more pass, so that usually in three or four days the leaves faded and withered much.

“He adds, that he repeated the same experiments with elm branches, oak, ozier, willow, sallow, ashen, currant, gooseberry, &c.; but none of these imbibed so much as the foregoing, and several sorts of evergreens very much less.

"He adds also another experiment: on the 15th of August he cut off a large pippin with two inches of stem, and its twelve adjoining leaves; that he set the stem in a little phial of water, and marked the quantity it imbibed and perspired in three days.

"And that at the same time he cut off from the same tree another bearing twig of the same length, with twelve leaves, no apples on it, and marked the quantity it imbibed in the same three days.

"That about the same time he set in a phial of water a short stem of the same tree, with two large

apples on it, without leaves, and marked the quan tity it imbibed.

"And says, that in this experiment the apples and leaves imbibed four-fifths of an ounce, the leaves alone about three-fifths, but the two large apples imbibed and perspired about one-third part so much as the twelve leaves; then the one apple imbibed but one-sixth part of what was imbibed by the twelve leaves, therefore two leaves imbibe and perspire as much as one apple; whence their perspirations seem to be proportional to their surfaces, the surfaces of the apples being nearly equal to the sum of their upper and under surfaces of the two leaves.

"Whence it is probable, that the use of these leaves (which are placed just where the fruit joins the tree) is to bring nourishment to the fruit.

"And accordingly he observes, that the leaves next adjoining to the blossoms are in the spring very much expanded, when the other leaves on barren shoots are but beginning to shoot, and that all peach leaves are very large before the blossom goes off.

"And that in apples and pears the leaves are one-third or half grown before the blossom opens; so provident is Nature in making timely provision for the nourishing the yet embryo fruit.

"He also adds another experiment. He stripped off the leaves of an apple-tree branch, and then fixed the great end of the stem in the gauge; it raised the mercury two inches and a half, but it

was subdivided, for want of the plentiful perspiration of the leaves, so that the air came in almost as fast as the branch imbibed water.

“And as a further proof of the influence of the leaves in raising the sap, he also made the following experiments.

"On the 6th of August he cut off a large russet pippin, with a stalk one inch and a half long, and twelve adjoining leaves growing to it.

"He cemented the stalk fast in the upper end of the tube, which tube was six inches long, and one-fourth of an inch in diameter. As the stalk imbibed the water, it raised the mercury four inches high.

That he fixed another apple of the same size in the same manner, but first pulled off the leaves, and it raised the mercury but one inch; that in the same manner he fixed a like bearing twig, with twelve leaves on it, but no apple, and it raised the mercury three inches.

"He then took a like bearing twig, without either leaves or apple, and it raised the mercury one-fourth of an inch.

"So a twig, with an apple and leaves, raised the mercury four inches; one with leaves, only three inches; one with an apple without leaves, one inch."

Miller further remarks, "These, and many more experiments of the Reverend Mr. Hales, that curious enquirer into the causes, state, and progress of vegetation, evidently shew the great perspiration

of the leaves of plants, and their great use in raising the sap, and other functions of vegetable nature."

The same reverend author, in his treatise of Vegetation, says, "It is plain, from the many experiments and observations before mentioned, that leaves are very serviceable in this work of vegetation, by being instrumental in bringing nourishment from the lower part, within the reach of the attraction of the growing fruit, which, like young animals, is furnished with proper instruments to suck it thence; but the leaves seem also designed for many other noble and important services, for Nature admirably adapts her instruments so as to be at the same time serviceable to many good purposes."

The justness of this author's conclusions is not only doubted, but the fact positively denied by Mrs. Ibbetson, who cites a number of experiments she made to prove that plants do not perspire; she, however, admits, that plants continually give out oxygene while the sun shines; and in this particular all naturalists and physiologists agree.

If, then, as before explained, we suppose the food of plants to be water, holding in solution carbonaceous matter, and that the roots take up this liquid, and that plants have the power of decomposing it; water being composed of oxygene and hydrogene, the hydrogene and carbon might be compounded in different proportions with a portion of oxygene, and formed into the different substances of