Vegetable Staticks. 6 s 



fore of dew, in hot weather, muft be, by 

 being plentifully imbibed into vegetables ; 

 thereby not only refrefhing them for the 

 prefent, but alfo furniming them with a 

 frefh fupply of moifture towards the great 

 expences of the fucceeding day. 



'Tis therefore probable, that the roots of 

 trees and plants are thus, by means of the 

 Sun's warmth, conftantly irrigated with 

 frefh fupplies of moifture ; which, by the 

 fame means, infinuates itfelf with fome 

 vigour into the roots. For, if the moifture 

 of the earth were not thus actuated, the roots 

 muft then receive all their nourifhment 

 merely by imbibing the next adjoining 

 moifture from the earth; and confequently 

 the (hell of earth, next the furface of the 

 roots, would always be confiderably drier, 

 the nearer it is to the root; which I have 

 not obferved to be fo. And by Exper. 1 8, 

 and 19, the roots would be very hard put to 

 it to imbibe fufficient moifture in dry fum- 

 mer weather, if it were not thus conveyed 

 to them by the penetrating warmth of the 

 Sun : Whence by the fame genial heat, in 

 conjunction with the attraction of the ca- 

 pillary fap-veffels, it is carried up thro* the 

 bodies and branches of vegetables; and 



F thence 



