THE PLANT. 



In looking at these figures we must remember that 

 Ahrends could only determine what the overground part 

 of the plant had received from the root, not, as Anderson 

 in the case of the turnip, what the whole plant had derived 

 from the soil. The great disparity in the increase of com- 

 bustible and incombustible substances evidently depends 

 rather upon the unequal distribution of the materials ab- 

 sorbed, than upon any disparity in the quantity derived 

 from the soil. The whole period of developement comprised 

 about 92 days, and we see that for more than the first 

 half (49 days) the plant remains stationary at an apparently 

 low stage of growth, the foHage alone being developed, 

 and that not fully. In the next 12 days, from the 18th 

 to the 30th June, the plant gains double the weight of 

 incombustible constituents, and grows twice as high as in 

 the 49 days preceding ; and within this short time, the 

 overground parts absorb nearly the same quantity of in- 

 combustible constituents as they had previously taken up. 

 In fact, the plant takes up 8J times the quantity of com- 

 bustible matter, and SJ times more of ash constituents on 

 one day of shooting, than upon one of the 49 previous 

 days. 



We cannot suppose it at aU likely that the external 

 conditions of nutrition, the supply of food by the atmo- 



