THE FOUNDERS OF THE 



ART OF BREEDING 



Pre-Mendelian Breeders of the Nineteenth Century — Concluded 



Herbert F. Roberts 

 Kansas State Agricultural College 



IV 



DURING the time of the prosecu- 

 tion of the work of Knight and 

 Herbert appeared the results 

 in hybridization obtained by 

 Sageret in France. Sageret's experi- 

 ments in crossing were largely confined 

 to the Cucurbitaceae, and his results 

 were published in a memoir entitled, 

 "Considerations sur la production des 

 hybrides, des variantes et des varietes 

 en general, et sur celles de la famille des 

 Cucurhitacees en particulier,'" which ap- 

 peared in 1826 in the Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles, Vol. 18. 



SAGERET ON SEGREGATION 



Sageret made some discoveries that 

 clearly anticipate our modern knowledge 

 of segregation, and he was able to furnish 

 what was, for the time, a fairly satis- 

 factory scientific explanation for the 

 reappearance of ancestral characters. 

 The experiment upon which his conclu- 

 sions were primarily based was a cross 

 in which a muskmelon was the female 

 and a cantaloupe the male parent. Each 

 plant was regarded as a relatively pure 

 or type representative of its kind. In 

 stating the results of the cross, Sageret 

 for the first time, so far as the writer 

 knows, in the history of plant hybridiza- 

 tion, aligned the characters of the 

 parents in opposing or contrasting pairs 

 after Mendel's fashion forty years later. 

 Following is the list of contrasting 

 parental characters as Sageret gives 

 them: 



Muskmelon (female) 



1. Flesh white. 



2. Seeds white. 



3. Skin smooth. 



4. Ribs shghtly evident. 



5. Flavor sugary, and very acid at the 

 same time. 



Cantaloupe (male) 



1. Flesh yellow. 



2. Seeds yellow. 



3. Skin netted. 



4. Ribs strongly pronounced. 



5. Flavor sweet. 



Sageret remarks: "The assumed pro- 

 duct of the crosses made ought to have 

 been intermediate: (1) Flesh very pale 

 yellow, (2) seeds very pale yellow, (3) 

 netting light, (4) sides slightly marked, 

 (5) flavor at once sweet and sprightly, 

 but the contrary was the case." 



As a matter of fact, in the two hybrid 

 fruits reported upon, the characters were 

 not blended or intermediate at all, but 

 were clearly and distinctly those oj the 

 one or the other parent. 



First hybrid 



1. Flesh yellow. 



2. Seeds white. 



3. Skin netted. 



4. Ribs rather pronounced. 



5. Flavor acid. 



Second hybrid 



1. Flesh yellowish. 



2. Seeds white. 



3. Skin smooth. 



4. Ribs wanting. 



5. Flavor sweet. 



In the further support of his conclu- 

 sions regarding the descent of characters 

 in unitary fashion, he remarks upon the 

 inheritance of himian hair and eye color 

 in the mating of a brunette with a 

 blonde type. He comments upon the 

 fact that these two hybrids are types of 

 which he had "several times obtained 

 the analogues or their equivalents." 

 While there is fusion here and there, he 

 says, "one sees here a much more marked 

 distribution of their different characters, 

 without any mixture between them." 

 He even uses, for the first time in the 

 literature of plant hybridization, the 

 word "dominate" with reference to 

 characters in crossing, in the following 

 words. Speaking of the inheritance of 

 flavor in various melon crosses, he says : 



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