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CHAPTER X. 
OF DIGESTION, RESPIRATION, AND THE PECULIAR SECRETIONS 
OF PLANTS. 
After the food is received into the system of a plant, it is 
gradually conveyed into the leaves, where it becomes decom- 
posed or digested. It is probable that, in its passage through 
the stem, it undergoes some kind of decomposition, leaving 
a portion of its water and carbon fixed among the tissue; but 
it is principally in the leaves that it is altered. By the time, 
however, that it has arrived in these organs, it is by no means 
in the same state as when it entered the roots ; but it becomes 
altered in its nature, and in its specific gravity, by the addi- 
tion of what soluble matter it meets with in its progress, — as 
has been proved experimentally by Knight. 
The alteration that the fluids of plants undergo in their 
leaves appears to consist in parting with superfluous water 
by evaporation ; in decomposing carbonic acid ; and in assi- 
milating the various matters which are left behind. The 
causes of these actions are believed to be light, and the atmo- 
spheric dryness which light produces. 
According to De Candolle, it is light alone to which eva- 
poration and the secretion of fluids by the roots are to be as- 
signed. He says, " If you select three plants in leaf, of the 
same species, of the same size, and of the same strength, and 
place them in close vessels, one in total darkness, the other in 
the diffused light of day, and the third in the sunshine, it will 
be found that the first pumps up very little water, the second 
much more, and the third a great deal more than either. 
These results vary according to species and circumstances; 
but it uniformly happens that plants in the sun absorb more 
than those in diffused light, and the latter more than those in 
darkness ; the last, however, pumping up something. If, again, 
we take three similar plants, and, preventing their absorption 
by the roots, after weighing them carefully, place them in 
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