74 The soil cmd the plcmt 



evident proofs in the foregoing experiments seen the 

 great quantities of liquor that were imbibed and per- 

 spired by trees, I was desirous to try if I could get any 

 of this perspiring matter ; and in order to do it, I took 

 several glass chymical retorts, hap [Fig. 36] and put 

 the boughs of several sorts of trees, as they were growing 

 with their leaves on, into the retorts, stopping up the 

 mouth p of the retorts with bladder. By this means I 

 got several ounces of the perspiring matter of vines, 

 figtrees " — and other trees, which " matter " Hales found 

 to be almost pure water. The test tube experiment 



Fig. 36. 

 Plants give out water through their 



leaves 



should now be made with a narrow-leaved grass like 

 sheep's fescue and with a wide-leaved grass like cocks- 

 foot. You will find that wide-leaved plants pass out 

 more water than those with narrow leaves, and hence 

 wide-leaved plants occur in damp situations or on damp 

 soils like loams and clays, while narrow-leaved plants 

 can grow on dry, sandy soils. 



Another thing you will notice is that fields lying at 

 the side of a river and liable to be flooded, and fields 



