(858)
dry, and in some Trees rough. The inner, is probably superadded new Coat of that years growth, or something like it, between the nature of Wood and Bark. The sap rises within and without that super added Coat.
From hence it may be more carefully inquired than hath been hitherto done. 1. Whether the more Circles there be in any Branch, the longer the Sap will ascend into it? 2. Whether the fewer Circles there are in it, the sooner the Sap subsides from it? 3. Whether a Branch (suppose) of three Circles, cut at Spring, the sap ascending, or another of the same bigness, will at Michaelmas following, if cut again, be found to have increased one or more Circles than it had in the Spring: and whether at Spring or Fall, or at other season, it be found to have a Circle or half a Circle of Pricks next or betwixt the Barks, or a Circle of Wood next the inner Bark onely, or both? But here the Comparison is to be made with distinction, For it must be inquired, Whether some Trees shoot new Tops every year until a certain Age, and after not? Whether some have the Circles in their Branches decreased from their Body to the extremity of the Branch in such order, that (e. g.) an Apple-tree shoot of this year hath one Circle of Pricks or Wood plac'd in the Graft of two years old, and that of two years growth will the next year have one Circle more then it had the year before? And whether this onely be till the Branch shoot no more Grafts, and whether then the utmost Twig get any new Circles, or stand at a stay, being nourish'd onely, not augmented in bulk as to the appearance of the Circles? And whether an Augmentation be between every Coat, or upon the outward Coat onely? Here it ought also to be enquired, Whether the Circles of pricks do encrease till Midsummer, and the Circles of wood from after Midsummer till next Spring?
Further, to perfect the experiment about Sap, and to find, Whether it ascends more or less in the prickt Circles of the Body, than in those betwixt the Body and the Bark; let the Tree be first pierced with an Auger onely through the Bark, and the quantity of Sap it yields in an hour, exactly measur'd and weigh'd; Then at the same time let another hole be bored into the Body of the Tree above an inch and an half deep, and so round abouton
