S2The artificial defoliation of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) can cause a marked decline in root food reserves, especially starch, and an increase in the levels of the reducing sugars, fructose and glucose. Defoliation can also bring on the dieback-decline syndrome in sugar maples (Parker and Houston 1968). Because drought, too, can bring on dieback symptoms, the question arose whether drought (or a combination of drought and defoliation) has the same effect as defoliation on root food reserves and reducing sugars. Two experiments designed to examine this question were conducted in 1968-69. In one, the effects of both drought and defoliation were examined; in the second, defoliation was eliminated as a variable. This paper is a report on those experiments. S3.