214 PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 



We thus have here, succinctly expressed, the relative point of 

 view held by this tolerably keen scrutinizer of the literature on 

 hybridization up to 1881. It is evident that "G. Mendel's" investi- 

 gations, made very little impression upon the mind of the re- 

 viewer. 



A further reference to Mendel's name among others appears on 

 p. 459, as follows : 



"The experiments of Kolreuter, Wiegmann, Gartner, Godron, Naudin, 

 Wichura, Mendel, Caspary, and others, served only scientific ends, while 

 Herbert and Regel united scientific and horticultural ones." {ib., p. 459.) 



The point of view expressed above is sufficiently evident. The 

 final reference to Mendel is on p. 492, as follows : 



"To none of the scientific hybrid breeders has it occurred to attach 

 particular species names to his newly-produced plant forms ; Kolreuter 

 and Gartner, Wiegmann and Lehmann, Naudin and Godron, Wichura, 

 Mendel and Caspary, in this respect have proceeded quite uniformly." 



We thus have, in closing, final testimony as to the merely for- 

 mal and conventional impression which Mendel's researches made 

 upon the European mind up to Focke's time and later. In fact we 

 may say that his papers made no more or further impression, as 

 the evidence shows, than any other two contributions of equal 

 length, published during the time under consideration. 



It is interesting to note the following extract from Focke's sec- 

 tion on "Xenias," (pp. 510-18). The paragraph discusses Goss's, 

 Seton's, and Knight's peas' experiments : 



"J. Goss fertilized flowers of the blue-seeded pea, 'Prolific Blue," with 

 pollen of a white dwarf pea. The pods contained yellowish-white seeds 

 which, when sown, furnished plants whose pods contained in part blue, 

 in part white, in part seeds of both kinds. After selection, the blue sort 

 remained constant, the white produced in part pods with white, in part 

 pods with both kinds of seeds. (Trans. Hort. Soc. of London, V, p. 234.) 

 Knight, in his numerous crosses, never observed an immediate change of 

 the seed-color in consequence of the operation of foreign pollen. Alex. 

 Seton saw peas of two colors in the same pod, but just as in the case 

 of Goss arising in a hybrid (Blendling), not immediately in consequence 

 of foreign pollination. (Transact. Hort. Soc. London, V, pp. 236, 379.) 

 Recently, in the meantime, cases are also reported, in which such pods 

 with two kinds of seeds purport to be produced (erzeugt sein sollen) 

 directly in a blue-seeded sort through foreign pollen. (Deutsche Garten- 

 7,eit, 4 Jahrg, p. 71.) Gartner also obtained seeds a few times in his cross- 

 ing experiments, the color in which had deviated from the mother plant." 

 (1, p. 514.) 



Knight's peas experiments having consisted in the crossing of 



