60 Roi/al Society. 



of the groat objects of his life, to effect improvements in the pro- 

 ductions of the vegetable kingdom, by new modes of culture, by the 

 impregnation of different varieties of the same species, and various 

 other expedients, commensurate Avith those which had already been 

 effected by agriculturists and others in the animal kingdom, by a 

 careful selection of parents, by judicious crossing, and by the avoid- 

 ance of too close an alliance of breeds. In the year 1 795 he contri- 

 buted to our Transactions his first, and perhaps his most important 

 paper, on the transmission of the diseases of decay and old age of 

 the parent-tree to all its descendants propagated by grafting or 

 layers, being the result of experiments which had already been long 

 continued and very extensively varied, and which developed views 

 of the greatest importance and novelty in the economy of practical 

 gardening, and likewise of very great interest in vegetable physio- 

 logy. This paper was succeeded by more than twenty others, 

 chiefly written between the years 1799 and 1812, containing the de- 

 tails of his most ingenious and original experimental researches on 

 the ascent and descent of the sap in trees ; on the origin and offices 

 of the alburnum and bark ; on tiie phenomena of germination ; on the 

 functions of leaves ; on the influence of light, and upon many other 

 subjects, constituting a series of facts and of deductions from them, 

 which have exercised the most marked influence upon the progress 

 of our knowledge of this most important department of the laws of 

 vegetable organization and life. 



Mr. Knight succeeded Sir Joseph Banks in the presidency of the 

 Horticultural Society, and contributed no fewer than 114- papers 

 to the diflerent volumes of its Transactions : these contributions 

 embrace almost every variety of subject connected with Horti- 

 culture; such as the production of new and improved varieties 

 of fruits and vegetables ; the adoption of new modes of grafting, 

 planting, and training fruit-trees ; the construction of forcing-frames 

 and hot-houses ; the economy of bees, and many other questions 

 of practical gardening, presenting the most important results of his 

 very numerous and well-devised experiments. 



Mr. Knisht was a person of great activity of body and mind, 

 and of singular perseverance and energy in the pursuit of his fa- 

 vourite science : he was a very lucid and agreeable writer, and it 

 would be difficult to name any other cotemporary author in this 

 or other countries who has made such important additions to our 

 knowledges of horticulture and the economy of vegetation. 



Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the owner of the beautiful domain of 

 Stourhead in Wiltshire, was the author of many valuable historical 

 and topographical works, and more especially of the history of his 

 native county, presenting so numerous and such splendid funereal 

 and other monuments of the primitive inhabitants of Great Britain, 

 which he investigated with a perseverance and success unrivalled 

 by any other antiquary. The early possession of an ample fortune 

 and of all the luxuries of his noble residence, seems to have stimu- 

 lated, rather than checked, the more ardent pursuit of those favourite 

 studies, which occupied his almost exclusive attention for more than 



