Male and Female Parents on their Offspring, 2H 



philosopher appears to have been misled, by the striking 

 predominance of the character of the male parent in male 

 animals, and to have drawn his conclusions somewhat too 

 generally : for 1 have observed that seedling plants, whea 

 propagated from male and female parents of distinct cha- 

 racters and permanent habits, generally, though with some 

 few exceptions, inherit much more of the character of the 

 female than of the male parent ; and the same remark is 

 applicable, in some respects, to the animal world, as I shall 

 point out in the succeeding narrative. 



My experiments were made on many different species of 

 fruit-trees ; but most extensively, and under the most ad- 

 vantageous circumstances, on the apple-tree: and as the 

 results were all in unison with each other, it will be ne- 

 cessary to trouble you only with an account of some of 

 the experiments which were made on that species of fruit- 

 tree. 



The apple, or crab of England, and of Siberia, however 

 dissimilar in habit and character, appear to constitute a 

 single species only ; in which much variation has been 

 effected by the influence of climate on successive genera- 

 tions : for the two varieties readily bred together, and the 

 offspring, whether raised from the seeds of the Siberian 

 or British variety, were prolific to a most exuberant extents 

 But there was a very considerable degree of dissimilarity* 

 in the appearance of the offspring ; and the leaves, and 

 general habits of each, presented an obvious prevalence of 

 the character of the female parent. The buds of those 

 plants, which had sprung from the seeds of the cultivated 

 apple, did not unfold quite so early in the spring ; and 

 their fruits generally exceeded, very considerably, in size, 

 those which were produced by the trees which derived their 

 existence from the seeds of the Siberian crab. There waa 

 also a prevalence of the character of the female parent in 

 the form of the fruit ; but the same degree of prevalence 

 did not extend to the quality and flavour of the fruit; for 

 the richest apple that I have ever seen, and which afforded 

 expressed juice of much higher specific gravity than any 

 other, sprang from a seed of yellow Siberian crab. 



The prevalence of the character of the female parent in 

 the preceding cases, may possibly be suspected to have 

 arisen from some error, or neglect of accuracy in making 

 the experiments; but I do not conceive that any such 

 errors could have existed ; for the trees of each variety wersj 

 trained to walls, where they blossomed much before any 



O 2 Others 



