THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



APRIL, 1838. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS, 



Art. I. Detail of Experiments on Vegetable Physiology, and Obser- 

 vations thereon. By N. Niven, Curator of the Glasnevin Botanic 

 Garden, Dublin. 



(Read at the Meeting of the British Association in Liverpool, on Tuesday, 

 Sept. 12. 1837.) 



My dear Sir, In compliance with your request, I have much 

 pleasure in sending you my paper on Vegetable Physiology, 

 read at the Meeting of the British Association, held in Liver- 

 pool last September. 



That paper, one of the respected gentlemen to whom I com- 

 mitted the specimens presented to the botanical section, for the 

 purpose of being deposited in the British Museum, kindly 

 offered to get published for me in London ; but, having then 

 some expectations of publishing it in this country, I declined 

 his obliging proposition. Not having realised that intention, 

 I have the greater pleasure now in committing my paper to 

 you, which I hope you will find it convenient to publish nearly 

 as it stands. 



It may not be presumptive in me to state in this letter, which 

 you are at perfect liberty to publish with my paper, that, had 

 I noticed in proper time the question proposed by the Academy 

 of Sciences at Haarlem last year, to be given in before the date 

 of this letter, namely, " How is 'wood formed ? " I should 

 not have hesitated to enter the lists, in answering that, and 

 possibly some other questions connected with the same subject. 

 As your Magazine will, in all probability, come under the notice 

 of that learned body, I respectfully refer its members to my 

 paper, and beg leave to say that leaves, or any modification of 

 leaves, form the origin of wood. N. Niven. 



Glasnevin Botanic Garden.^ January 1. 1838. 



Having, for the last three years, been more or less engaged in 

 some experiments on the interesting subject of vegetable physi- 

 ology, it may, perhaps, not be uninteresting, on the present 



Vol. XIV. — No. 97. m 



