158 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [\ 



some of the wonderful adaptations of flowers to insects, 

 but he did not perceive the meaning of these adapta- 

 tions to the i)rogress of the vegetable world. Knight 

 was the first to directly undertake the improvement of 

 plants by means'of crossing. "New varieties of every 

 species of fruit will generally be better obtained," he 

 writes in 1806, "by introducing the farina of one va- 

 riety of fruit into the blossom of another, than by prop- 

 agating any from a single kind." He made experi- 

 ments in crossing which, for extent, variety and im- 

 portance, would do great credit to any experimenter 

 of the present day, even after we have obtained much 

 definite knowledge of the results of cross-breeding. 

 The varieties of fmits which he raised, largely by means 

 of crossing, were many and important. Amongst those 

 which American horticulturists know are Elton and 

 Black Eagle cherries, Ickworth Imperatrice plum and 

 Downton nectarine. He originated many varieties of 

 potatoes, and several of peas, cabbages, pears, straw- 

 berries and apples. 



The transcendent merit of Knight's studies and ex- 

 periments lies, however, in the fact that he made them 

 contributions to our knowledge of the general forces and 

 processes of nature, rather than to restrict them to a 

 special application to horticulture. He was one of the 

 pioneers of that inductive type of experiment which 

 reached such a high level in the work of Darwin, and 

 which has come to be a passion in our recent life. In 

 other words, he was a philosopher. In the closing 

 year of the last century, he hinted at the fact that 

 nature employs intrabreeding for the purpose of im- 

 proving plants and animals ; he demonstrated the value 

 of crossing as a means of producing new forms ; and 



