CHAPTER VI 



THE OLDER HYBRIDISTS 



THERE is one side of the practical study of heredity 

 which dates back to the middle of the seventeenth 

 century namely, that branch of the subject which is 

 concerned with the hybridizing or artificial cross- 

 breeding of different species and varieties of plants. 

 Quite recently the great importance which attaches 

 to this method of study has been realized once more, 

 and the interest thus awakened has led to a closer 

 examination of the accounts of experiments under- 

 taken a century or more ago, with the result of showing 

 that much of the work then carried out in this direc- 

 tion had attained to quite an astonishing degree of 

 excellence. In the brief sketch of the history of 

 hybridizing work here following, account will be taken 

 almost exclusively of experiments of which the in- 

 terest is not historical only, but which possess an 

 actual scientific value. Amongst other matters of 

 interest, it will be found that more than one observer 

 came very near to anticipating Mendel's epoch- 

 making discovery, and thus arriving at the clue which 

 should unravel almost aD the complex problems which 

 beset the early hybridizers. 

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