INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE UPON OFFSPRING. 385 



warm climate to a cooler one, the effect would be 

 to stunt its vigor, prevent the perfect ripening of 

 the fruit, as well as that of the wood. A seedling 

 raised from such a tree, we should expect, would be 

 possessed of less vigor than its parent, bear fruit of 

 inferior quality than when in its native clime, at the 

 same time that it would gain greater hardiness of 

 wood, which would adapt it to its new position. If 

 this same tree should be removed from its native 

 clime to another, more favorable, it would find 

 physical influences as unadapted to its character as 

 the parent found in its place of nativity, and the 

 next generation would return again to the first 

 type. Thus through successive generations nature 

 adapts the variety to the conditions in which it is 

 placed. Mr. Knight, in a paper which he read 

 before the London Horticultural Society, in 1806, 

 said : " If two plants of the vine, or other tree of 

 similar habits, or even if obtained from cuttings of 

 the same tree, were placed to vegetate during several 

 successive seasons in very different climates, — the 

 one planted on the banks of the Rhine, and the 

 other on those of the Nile, — each would adapt its 

 habits to the climate in which it was placed ; and if 

 both were subsequently brought in early spring to 

 a climate similar to that of Italy, the plant from 

 the north would instantly vegetate, while the other 

 would remain torpid." We think, however, that 

 the observation of Mr. Knight has not been sus- 



