10 ON BREEDING AND RAISING VEGETABLES. 



" Moses tells us, in his account of the creation, 

 "that plants have their seeds within themselves ; 

 " that is, every plant contains in itself, male and 

 " female powers. The text he has given us, 

 *< seemed to be explained by this discovery, and 

 " may lead us to consider, that plants wanting 

 "local motion, require therefore this union of 

 " sexes in themselves ; by which means they 

 "may generate without the neighbourhood of 

 " other plants. But before I proceed to explain 

 " this new system, [ think myself obliged to de- 

 " clare, that the first time this secret was com- 

 " municated to me, was several years ago, by a 

 "worthy member of the Royal Society, Robert 

 " Yates, Esq., who has had this notion for above 

 " thirty years, that plants had a mode of ge- 

 " nerating somewhat analogous to that of ani- 

 " mals. The light which I received from this 

 " gentleman was afterwards further explained by 

 " another learned member of that society, Mr. 

 "Samuel Moreland, who in the Philosophical 

 " Transactions, 1703, has given us to understand 

 " how the dust of the apices of male flowers is 

 " conveyed into the uterus, or vasculum semi- 

 "nale of a plant; by which means the seeds 

 " therein contained are impregnated. I then 

 " made it my business to search after this truth, 

 " and have had the good fortune enough to bring 

 " it to demonstration by several experiments. 



