165 



also. Men have art enough to erect machines, for 

 reducing it to powder. But the birds eat it as it is, 

 and it would pass them whole without doing them 

 any good, were it not, that when it is moistened, it 

 bursts open at the furrow aud yields them nourish- 

 ment. 



The meal is composed of an infinite number of 

 round, white, transparent bodies. These enclose the 

 young plant, and by their figure being easily put 

 in motion, as soon as affected by the heat and mois- 

 ture of the earth, they insinuate into the vessels of 

 the plant, and give it increase, till it is in a condition, 

 to feed on the juices of the earth. The same pro. 

 cess of nature is observable, when grains of corn grow- 

 out of time, on being thrown carelessly together, in a 

 moist place. 



21. Plants do likewise perspire. To find the quan- 

 tity imbibed and perspired by plants, Dr. Hale took 

 a pot with a large Sun-flower planted in it, and by 

 various experiments found, the greatest perspiration 

 iti a very warm day to be one pound fourteen ounces, 

 the middle perspiration one pound four ounces. It 

 perspired three ounces in a warm night when there 

 was no dew. If small dew fell, it perspired nothing, 

 if a large dew it gained two or three ounces. 



The weight of the flower was three pounds, the 

 weight of a well sized man is one hundred and sixty, 

 The flower perspires twenty-two ounces, in twenty- 

 four hours; the man about twenty-five; (beside six 

 ounces, which are carried off by respiration from the 

 lungs). 



A middling man eats and drinks k twenty-four 

 hours, about four pounds teii ounces. The plant im- 

 bibed and perspired in the same time twenty-two 

 ounces. But taken bulk for bulk the plant imbibes 

 seventeen times more food than the man. For de- 

 ducting five ounces for faeces, there will remain but 

 four pounds, five ounces, which enter the veins, and 

 pass off in twenty-four hours. And since taken bulk for 

 bulk, the plant imbibes so much more food than the. 



