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[Page 2]
favoured me with, on the back of my paper.
Page 4 - why the preceding year? The sap of the grapes and of other Herbaceous Plants I conceive to descend from the leaves into the roots in one summer & autumn & to be employed in the succeeding spring in the Formation of leaves: the matter thus employed must therefore have been deposited in "The preceding Year".
To why expanding Leaves & Blossoms? Persons unacquainted with Vegetation do not know that the leaves and blossoms are formed in the preceding summer & therefore I used the term expanding to shew that I did not suppose the buds to be generating in the spring. I have not blotted out the word tho' perhaps it is little assumed & if you think so I beg you to obliterate it.
Our hypotheses do not differ very widely relative to the action of plants producing seeds, in the soil; but you conceive that the seed during its growth & Ripening continues to receive nutrients from the soil, whilst I am more inclined to think that it derives its whole food from matter previously prepared within the plant. I will state one fact which I think in my favour. When a Brocoli plant goes to seed its leaves frequently fall wholly off as soon as the seed-vessels are grown, & I do not conceive that a plant wholly deprived of leaves to be capable of assimilating food from the crude sap for the seed. The fibrous bark of a large Brocoli plant I imagine [indecipherable] a mile (but I speak at random) in length. These are full of