Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/104

90 year had remained to perform its proper office till the end of the autumn, on ground which had been mowed early in the summer. Whence I have been led to imagine, that the leaves, both of trees and herbaceous plants, are alike employed, during the latter part of the summer, in the preparation of matter calculated to afford food to the expanding buds and blossoms of the succeeding spring, and to enter into the composition of new organs of assimilation.

If the preceding hypothesis be well founded, we may expect to find that some change will gradually take place in the qualities of the aqueous sap of trees during its ascent in the spring; and that any given portion of winter-felled wood will at the same time possess a greater degree of specific gravity, and yield a larger quantity of extractive matter, than the same quantity of wood which has been felled in the spring or in the early part of the summer. To ascertain these points I made the experiments, ah account of which I have now the honour to lay before you.

As early in the last spring as the sap had risen in the sycacamore and birch, I made incisions into the trunks of those trees, some close to the ground, and others at the elevation of seven feet, and I readily obtained from each incision as much sap as I wanted. Ascertaining the specific gravity of the sap of each tree, obtained at the different elevations, I found that of the sap of the sycamore with very little variation, in different trees, to be 1.004 when extracted close to the ground, and 1.008 at the height of seven feet. The sap of the birch was somewhat lighter; but the increase of its specific gravity, at greater elevation, was comparatively the same. When extracted near the ground the sap of both kinds was almost free