30 Paiutuvi of Plants, [Book VI 1 1, 



The NoukiSHME T of vegetables, as it is fo inti- 

 mately connected with the important fcience of agri- 

 culture, has defervedly attracted confiderable attention. 

 Mr. Boyle dried in nn oven a quantity of earth proper 

 for vegetation, and, after carefully weighing it, planted 

 in it the feed of a gourd ; he watered it with pure 

 rain-water, and it produced a plant, which weighed 

 fourteen pounds., though the earth had fuffered no fen- 

 fible di Miration. 



A \vjiiow-tree was planted by Van Helmont, in a. 

 pot, containing 100 pounds of earth. This was in ge- 

 neral watered with diftilled water, or fometimes with 

 rain-water, which appeared perfectly pure. The vefiel 

 containing the plant was covered in fuch a manner as 

 totally to exclude the entrance of all folid matter. At 

 the end of five years, upon taking out the plant, he 

 found it to have increafed in weight not lefs than 1 19 

 pounds, though the earth had loft only two ounces of 

 its original weight. 



Thefe experiments would admit of fome doubt, and 

 mult have remained in a great meafure inexplicable, 

 but for the experiments of Mr. Cavendim, and the 

 facts related by Dr. Prieftley, which place it beyond a 

 doubt, that vegetables have a power of decompofing 

 water, and converting it, with what they derive from 

 the atmofphere, into almoft all the different matters 

 found to exift in their fubftance. For the products of 

 wood in diftillation, 1 muft refer the reader to what has 

 been advanced in the chapter on carbon, or the carbo* 

 naceous principle. 



All the proper juices of vegetables depend on the 

 organization, as is evident from the operation of graft- 

 ing. From the materials of fimple water and air, arc 

 produced thofe wonderful diverfities of peculiar juices 

 and fruits, which the vegetable world affords > and the 



immenfe 



