ON VAKIETIES, KACES, SUB-SPECIES, AND SPECIES. IQl 



species, denied the justness of Knight's opinion, and affirmed the 

 necessity of preserving our old stocks, when he at the same time 

 admitted that budding and layers tended to enfeeble the plants 

 produced by those processes, and that grafted plants do not live 

 so long as those which are left in their natural state ? How are 

 we to compreliend M, Vilmorin's ideas on the fixity of species, 

 if we are in ig-norance that, when cultivating culinary plants to 

 perpetuate modifications, he was incessantly endeavouring to find 

 some means by wiiich to prevent the return of his plants to their 

 wild condition ? 



If we look at many plants raised by budding and from layers, 

 and placed in conditions favourable to their development, we 

 are sure to find some specimens stronger and more vigorous than 

 the plants from which they were taken ; we have come to this 

 conclusion from a long series of experiments made on shrubs 

 and arbustes, for tlie purpose of showing that a weak plant may, 

 by means of a cutting, layer, or sucker, taken at the right time 

 and placed in favourable circumstances, be made to give a strong, 

 vigorous plant. We think this opinion is the more worthy of 

 credit, as it is perfectly conformable to the following observa- 

 tions extracted from the Pomologie Physiologique. 



" I have seen," says M. Sageret, " some old Turk's-cap Gourd 

 seeds, scarcely ripe, and hadhj formed, come up, languish at first, 

 exhibit blotches on their leaves, and after all become as vigorous 

 as most plants of the species : poor, small, and miripe melon 

 seeds have produced much finer melons than the plant from 

 which they came : the little black Cantaloup des carmes, prema- 

 ture, ripened in April in a pit, and resown in the month of May 

 in the same year in tlie open ground, yielded at the end of the 

 season nothing but insipid fruit, the seeds of which, resown in a 

 bed the next year, gave very fine and excellent fruit. This same 

 melon, which, whilst under cover, never became very large, pro- 

 duced seeds when sown in the open air, but in a fine season the 

 following year yielded very large and good fruit." 



Moreover, M. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps has known small 

 grains of wheat, properly sown and cultivated, to yield grains 

 of excellent quality. 



We think these facts remarkable, because they show that 

 strong healthy plants may be obtained from old seed of inferior 

 quality : they show that the seed of bad fruit may produce fruit 

 of a good quality : they certainly do not strengthen the opinion 

 which admits a degeneration and extinction, first striking plants 

 obtained by division, then the vai'ieties represented by them, 

 and lastly the species themselves to which they belong. 



M. Poiteau, who, as already stated, believes in the fixity of 

 species, does not admit degeneration of varieties obtained by 



