199 
been consumed in producing their expansion, and 
there will be less spirit formed in fermentation, or 
produced in distillation. 
As this circumstance is of some importance, I 
made in October 1806 an experiment relating to 
it. I ascertained by the action of alcohol, the re- 
lative proportions of saccharine matter in two 
equal quantities of the same barley ; in one of 
which the germination had proceeded so far as to 
occasion a protrusion of the radicle to nearly a 
quarter of an inch beyond the grain in most of the 
specimens, and in the other of which it had been 
checked before the radicle was a line in length ; 
the quantity of sugar afforded by the last was to 
that in the first nearly as six to five. 
The saccharine matter in the cotyledons at the 
time of their change into seed-leaves, renders them 
exceedingly liable to the attacks of insects : this 
principle is at once a nourishment of plants and 
animals, and the greatest ravages are committed 
upon crops in this first stage of their growth. 
The turnip fly, an insect of the colyoptera genus, 
fixes itself upon the seed-leaves of the turnip at 
the time that they are beginning to perform their 
functions ; and when the rough leaves of the plume 
are thrown forth, it is incapable of injuring the 
plant to any extent. 
Several methods have been proposed for destroy- 
ing the turnip fly, or for preventing it from injuring 
the crop, it has been proposed to sow radish-seed 
with the turnip-seed, on the idea that the insect is 
fonder of the seed-leaves of the radish than those 
o 4 
