Page:Treatise on Cultivation of the Potato.djvu/28

 and highly prized by the horticulturists of England, and probably by those of most civilized countries to whose climate they are suited.

The idea of improving fruits by crossing seems to have been entertained by Lord Bacon, though he was ignorant of the method of accomplishing it. After stating the effects of this course in producing mules in the animal world, he thus proceeds: "The compounding and mixture of plants is not found out, which, nevertheless, if it be possible, is more at command than that of living creatures; wherefore it were one of the most noble experiments touching plants to find this art; for so you may have a great variety of new plants and flowers yet unknown. Grafting doth it not: that mendeth the fruit, or doubleth the flower, but it hath not the power to make a new kind—for the scion ever overruleth the stock."

If to Lord Bacon must be assigned the merit of having first suggested the possibility of producing new fruits in this manner, it was reserved for Mr. Knight to discover the means by which those "most noble experiments" were to be rendered successful; and to his discoveries we undoubtedly owe the innumerable varieties of excellent fruits that supply our tables.—From Life of Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., prefixed to a selection from his Physiological and Horticultural Papers.

Following this, I reprint in extenso Professor Asa Gray's article on the subject in the American Journal of Science and Arts.

question has been argued from time to time for more than half a century, and is far from being settled yet. Indeed, it is not to be settled either way so easily as is sometimes thought. The result of a prolonged and rather lively discussion of the topic about forty years ago in England, in which Lindley bore a leading part on the negative side, was, if we rightly remember, that the nays had the best of the argument. The deniers could fairly well explain away the facts adduced by the other side, and evade the force of the reasons then assigned to prove that varieties were bound to die out in the course of time. But if the case were fully re-argued now, it is by no means certain that the nays would