FUNCTION.] CONSEQUENCES OF HYBRIDISM. 247 



American-Indian Rhododendrons. By crossing varieties of 

 the same species, the races of fruits and' of culinary vege- 

 tables have been brought to a state as nearly approaching 

 perfection as we can suppose possible. And if similar 

 improvements have not taken place in a more important 

 department, namely, in corn, or in the trees that afford us 

 timber, experience fully warrants the belief that, if proper 

 means were adopted, improved varieties of as much conse- 

 quence might be introduced into our fields and forests, as have 

 already been created for our gardens. 



The best paper we possess upon the practical value of the 

 facts elicited by hybridising, is to be found in the Journal of 

 the Horticultural Society, from the pen of the late Dean of 

 Manchester, a gentleman whose whole life was spent in pur- 

 suits which enabled him to watch the phenomena in question, 

 and whose highly cultivated intellect taught him how to 

 reason upon them philosophically. In the following striking 

 passages we have the general result of Dr. Herbert's views on 

 this subject : 



" I will therefore state, briefly and humbly, what is the 

 general bias of my surmises as to the diversification of vege- 

 tables, to which that of animals must be in a certain degree 

 analogous. We know that four races of men have branched 

 out from one stock, the white, the black or African, the 

 brown or Asiatic, and the red, with various subdivisions of 

 aspect amongst them, and we know nothing of the mode or 

 time in which those diversities arose. Revelation and history 

 are equally silent on those facts. They must have occurred 

 very early. Jupiter is said to have visited the Ethiopians ; 

 and M. Faber has proved that the things recorded of Jupiter 

 relate to the period which immediately followed the deluge. 

 We may therefore assume that such changes began in the 

 lifetime of the sons of Noah, or were immediately consequent 

 on the dispersion of mankind. We are equally in the dark 

 as to the races of dogs. Old writers allude to different kinds 

 of dogs, and we do not know when or how any one of those 

 we possess originated ; and the same may be said with respect 

 to the origin of languages. From these facts I draw this 

 inference, which seems to me incontrovertible, that a course 



