78 PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 



through the whole of the plan of my observations and experiments, which 

 will appear in the above-mentioned treatise, and of which the ones here 

 presented are only a small part, I shall completely convince everyone, 

 even the most stiff-necked doubter, of the truth of the sex of plants, if, 

 contrary to all suppositions, such an one should still be found, who, after 

 a close examination, still maintained the contrary, it would be as greatly 

 a surprise to me, as though I heard anyone maintain at clear midday that 

 it is night." ("Vorlaufige Nachricht," Vorrede, p. 5.) 



Despite the fact that Kolreuter had demonstrated conclusively 

 the possibility of crossing plants, even "species," artificially, 

 and had even laid the foundations for a knowledge of the laws 

 governing hybrids, much doubt still remained in the minds of 

 botanists, regarding the facts which Camerarius' and Kolreuter's 

 experiments demonstrated. As Sachs remarks (9, p. 413) : 



"The plant collectors of the Linnaean school, as well as the true 

 systematists at the end of the eighteenth century, had little understand- 

 ing for such labors as Kolreuter's, and incorrect ideas on hybrids and 

 their power of maintaining themselves prevailed in spite of them in 

 botanical literature." 



Gartner says of Kolreuter's work, writing In 1849 (3 c, p. 5) : 



"Hybridization in its scientific significance was so little thought of, 

 and at the most regarded merely as a proof of the sexuality of plants, 

 that the many important suggestions and actual data which this diligent 

 and exact observer recorded in various treatises have found but little 

 acceptance in plant physiological papers up to the most recent time. On 

 the other hand, even in respect to the sexuality of plants, they were at- 

 tacked to such a degree that their genuineness was doubted and strenu- 

 ously contradicted, or else they were regarded as a sort of inoculation 

 phenomenon belonging to gardening." 



11. Christian Konrad Sprengel. 



Christian Konrad Sprengel was born in Brandenburg a H. in 

 1750, as the fifteenth son of a clergyman. He studied theology 

 and philology at Halle, and in 1774 became instructor in the 

 school of the King Frederick Hospital, and at the Royal Military 

 School in Berlin. 



After six years of service, he was appointed (1780) to the posi- 

 tion of Head (Rector) of the large Lutheran city school at Span- 

 dau, where his teaching was largely in the ancient languages, 

 a position which he held until 1794. In this year he was retired 

 on a pension, and spent his remaining years in Berlin, living in 

 quite simple circumstances, until his death, which occurred April 

 7, 1816. 



At the suggestion of a Dr. Heim, then a practising physician 



