234 On the Utility of Oxygene Air in promoting Vegetation. 



September, 1796, two feet nine inches, and in September, 

 1797, five feet ten inches, sending out proportionably vigorous 

 lateral branches. 



Thus, it appears, that by the use of Oxygene Air, this plant, 

 in an unfavourable situation, grew stronger and more healthy, 

 than it probably would have done in the most favourable 

 situation without Oxygene Air; for, the earth in which it grew, 

 only weighed between five and six pounds ; the pot stood in 

 an east window of a room, in which a fire was only kept about 

 six hours out of the twenty-four of each day, so that the frost 

 often penetrated to it : and that of Christmas 1796, was so 

 keen, as to sink a thermometer hung behind the plant se- 

 veral degrees below the freezing point. By a temporary re- 

 moval, however, into a warmer room, though the plant was 

 greatly injured, it was so far restored to health, as to be full 

 of leaves and flowers by March 1797. This healthy state 

 was again checked by a severe frost penetrating into the 

 room, my servant having incautiously left the window open : 

 its flowers were quite blasted, and most of its leaves. From 

 this accident, however, it soon recovered, and is at this 

 moment more than twelve feet high, in the fullest health and 

 beauty. 



I have been making experiments for several winters on the 

 roots of Hyacinths, placed in glasses of New River water, by 

 immersing an ounce phial filled with Oxygene Air in the glass 

 with its mouth downwards. These Hyacinths were double va- 

 rieties, which an eminent seedsman in Fleet-street informed 

 me seldom succeeded in water alone : yet not a single root 

 has ever failed ; on the contrary, both the flowers and leaves 

 were bolder and larger, than those of the same plants cul- 



