[ 207 



^ 



ter to 24 cubical inches of atmospherical air, at a tem- 

 perature of 59. It began to throw forth a shoot on 

 the third day; when it was a half an inch long I ex- 

 amined the air; nearly a cubical inch of oxygene was 

 absorbed, and about three-fourths of a cubical inch of 

 carbonic acid formed. The juices in the shoot separ- 

 ated from the potatoe, had a sweet taste; and the ab- 

 sorption of oxygene, and the production of carbonic 

 acid, were probably connected with the conversion of 

 a portion of starch into sugar. When potatoes that 

 have been frozen are thawed, they become sweet; pro- 

 bably oxygene is absorbed in this process; if so, the 

 change may be prevented by thawing them out of the 

 contact of air, under water, for instance, that has 

 been recently boiled. 



In the tillering of corn that is, the production of 

 new stalks round the original plume, there is every rea- 

 son to believe that oxygene must be absorbed; for the 

 stalk at which the tillering takes place, always con- 

 tains sugar, and the shoots arise from a part derived of- 

 light. The drill husbandry favours this process; for 

 loose earth is thrown by hoeing round the stalks; they 

 are preserved from light, and yet supplied with oxy- 

 gene. I have counted from forty to one hundred and 

 twenty stalks; produced from a grain of wheat, in a 

 moderately good crop of drilled wheat. And we are 

 informed by Sir Kenelm Digby in 1 660, that there was 

 in the possession of the Fathers of the Christian Doc- 

 trine at Paris, a plant of barley which they, at that time, 

 kept by them as a curiosity, and which consisted of 249 

 stalks springing from one root, or grain; and in which 

 they counted above 18,000 grains, or seeds of barley > 



