COLONEL FLEMING'S JOURNAL, 1779-1780



time for making the sugar was past. After the fibers of the
tree is hardened by the winter cold and the Juices thickened
the accumulation if any being very languid. The diam-
eters of the vessels are contracted, the first juice or sap
that rises is thin and spirituous which by degrees moistens
the rigid fibers of the wood, thins the thickened sap, in the
vessels and being carried to the different parts and extremi-
ties of the twigs and branches swells the buds and by degrees
the embrio leaves etc. expand, as they grow in dimensions
it requires a more nutritive Juice to support them and add
timber to the tree in the Autumn after the Summers heat,
which exhales the thinner sap the encreasing cold constringes
the woody and more solid fibres, the thicker Juice either
stagnates or their motion is very slow, and not being able
to circulate in the vessels as formerly the leaves loose their
verdure, turn pale or Yellow and at last drop off, yet the
Vesels not being entirely stoped, their diameters only de-
creased, a thin Juice or sap circulates in them as in the Spring
which may be made into sugar, till the encreasing cold puts
a stop even to this secretion in the root, when the Juites
are altogether froze, as it is the property of liquours freezing
to expand in dementions and to overcome the greater resist-
ance, the Juices in trees by freezing taking up a larger space
than before, act in some measure like wedges and split the
tree with a considerable noise, as we found travelling in this
Country during the extremity of the frost, we frequently
heard them crack like Pistols for this reason a hard frost
destroys the succeeding fruit, the proper vessels being this
way destroyed, or if verry intense kills the tree altogether.
We this day had a confirmation of Col. Calaways and
Pempertons being kild and scalped, and two negroes taken
prisoners they were making a flat'1 a mile and a half from
Boonsburg we were likewise informed that the Indians had
Attacked Ridles Station 2 on Friday the ioth without kill-
ing any person but drawing off the horses and killing all
  1 Flat-boat.
  2Riddle's or Ruddle's Station, on the east bank of the South
Fork of the Licking, northeast of Lexington.
        2 S                635