CHAPTER II 



8. Kdlr enter (1733-1806). 



CAMERARIUS' memoir fell on sterile, or rather on unpre- 

 pared soil. Over half a century elapsed before one was 

 found to speak his praise as follows: 



"Rudolph Jacob Camerarius is indisputably the first who proved the 

 sex of plants through his own experiments instituted from this point of 

 view. He, my fellow countryman, it is whom the learned world has 

 principally to thank for this great truth, which is so general, and of 

 such great influence upon the physical and economic sciences. Camer- 

 arius it was, who criticised in the most fundamental way everything of 

 this material, as well that which was found in the oldest as in the new- 

 est writings of his time ; compared them with one another and, to- 

 gether with a quantity of his own observations and useful applications, 

 whereby the theory of this truth has now been strengthened, laid the 

 matter before the learned world in a letter to Mich. Bernard Valentin." 



These were the words of Joseph Gottlieb Kolreuter. From the 

 25th of August, 1694, th^ <^^te of Camerarius' letter concerning 

 his experiments upon sex in plants, until September 1, 1761, 

 there was made no fundamental progress in the real scientific 

 knowledge of the phenomena of inheritance. On this latter date 

 appeared Kolreuter's "Preliminary Report of some Experiments 

 and Observations concerning Sex in Plants." This report was fol- 

 lowed in 1763, 1764, and 1766, by three supplementary papers on 

 the same subject, which record the results of 136 distinct experi- 

 ments in the crossing of plants. 



If Camerarius made the actual scientific discovery concerning 

 sex in plants, Kolreuter was the first to give to this discovery 

 scientific application. He was born x\pril 27, 1733, in the Swabian 

 village of Sulz, in the valley of the Neckar, in the Black Forest 

 region of Southwest Germany. From 1760 to 1764, he conducted 

 his experiments, partly in his native village, partly in the garden 

 of a physician, Achatius Gartner, in the town of Calw in Wiir- 

 temberg, and partly in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Leipzig. From 

 1764 until his death in 1806, he was Professor of Natural His- 



