THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE, 



SEPTEMBER, 1852. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. The Transformation of Plants, and the importance 

 of its results. By the Editor. 



Every few years the subject comes up in our agricultural 

 papers of the transmutation of wheat into chess. Intelligent 

 cultivators, and men of veracity, have affirmed that such 

 changes have taken place, and have offered to furnish speci- 

 mens of the transmutation ; but the question has been con- 

 sidered by most agricultural writers so absurd, and indeed 

 apparently impossible, — setting at naught, as it would appear,^ 

 all our established notions of botanical distinctions, — that 

 those who have advanced such statements have scarcely had 

 the privilege of telling their own story. 



We willingly admit that we have had no faith in any of 

 these alleged transmutations ; nevertheless, if all that is now 

 told is true, our belief is somewhat shaken, and the transmu- 

 tation a theory not by any means, as has been supposed^ 

 impossible ; still we must have good evidence before we can 

 believe it probable : such evidence, it will be seen, is now 

 adduced by two learned French botanists. 



In the Gardeners^ Chronicle we find some remarks on the 

 subject of the origin of wheat, which are worthy the atten- 

 tion of every cultivator ; not particularly for the detail of the 

 experiments by which the grain is traced from its original 

 form to its present perfect state, but for the results which Dr, 



TOL. XVIII. NO. IX. 49 



