THE FOUNDERS OF THE 



ART OF BREEDING 



Pre-Mendelian Breeders of the Nineteenth Century 



Herbert F. Roberts 

 Kansas State Agricultural Collece 



—III 



IN 1819 the Physical Section of the 

 Royal Prussian Academy of the 

 Sciences offered a prize for an an- 

 swer to the question — ' ' Does hy- 

 brid fertiHzation occur in the plant 

 kingdom?" and this, despite the fact 

 that as far back as 1761, Koelreuter, in 

 the preface to his pubHshed work, had 

 flattered himself with the hope that 

 now "even the most stubborn doubter 

 of the truth of the sexuality of plants 

 would be completely convinced." "If, 

 contrary to all conjecture," he says, 

 "there should be such a one, who after 

 a rigid examination, still maintained the 

 contrary, it would astonish me as greatly 

 as though I heard someone on a clear 

 mid-day maintain that it was night." 

 Fifty-six years after this utterance, how- 

 ever, the Prussian Academy still sought 

 light in the darkness that Koelreuter 

 had flattered himself to have dispelled. 

 On the third of July, 1826, the Acad- 

 emy's prize was conferred upon Dr. A. 

 F. Wiegmann, physician of Braun- 

 schweig. Since the investigation did 

 not, in the Academy's opinion, furnish a 

 complete solution to the question, but 

 half instead of the whole of the prize 

 was granted. The award was made in 

 the following language: "The author 

 has described the results of his inves- 

 tigation with appropriate brevity. These 

 results are in part completely convin- 

 cing, and in part not," the reason being 

 given that certain of Wiegmann's hy- 

 brid specimens submitted scarcely 

 showed evidence of being of a hybrid 

 character. Since, on the other hand, 

 Wiegmann's results completely con- 

 firmed and extended those of Koel- 

 reuter, and especially by reason of his 

 determination of the fact that self-fer- 

 tilized hybrids may bear fertile seeds, 

 it was decided to grant an award. 



"Wiegmann, through forty years of ob- 

 servation, including the fact of having 

 actually produced two geranium crosses 

 as early as his sixteenth year, was al- 

 ready predisposed toward the affirma- 

 tive of the question submitted. His in- 

 vestigations, begun in 1822, were finally 

 published in 1828. In order to over- 

 come all possible criticisms from the 

 opponents of the idea of sexuality in 

 plants, which he considered might be 

 directed against what he refers to as 

 "an unnatural handling of plants in 

 pots," he conducted his operations in the 

 open ground, in connection with which 

 he alludes to the several hindrances he 

 was obliged to undergo, "weak sight, a 

 trembling hand, and painful bending 

 and kneeling" (p. 2). 



Wiegmann refers to the many failures 

 encountered, including the attempted 

 repetition of a number of Koelreuter's 

 experiments, as being probably due in 

 part to having attempted crosses be- 

 tween different genera, "since many 

 stigmas, according to my numerous ex- 

 periments, take the pollen of too distant 

 genera either not at all, or with extreme 

 difficulty" (p. 2). "Plants which to- 

 gether are to produce hybrids," he says 

 (p. 26), "must have some relationship 

 with one another, as Koelreuter has 

 already remarked. The nearer the 

 parent plants are related to one an- 

 other, the more easily will hybrid fer- 

 tilization succeed; most easily in the 

 case of different sub-species or varieties ; 

 then different species of the same genus ; 

 less easily in the case of plants of dif- 

 ferent genera." 



Wiegmann, however, was completely 

 free from any rigid dogmatic attitude 

 on the species question. His views in 

 this regard are completely modern. 



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