HEREDITY OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 191 



as well as to all the many forms of cabbage, kale, cauliflowers, 

 etc., which are derived from the wild plant of our sea-cliffs, 

 Brassica oleracea. It applies to the various forms of parsley, 

 beans, peas, etc., and, among flowers, to wallflowers, nasturtiums, 

 snapdragons, foxgloves and many others which have produced 

 "races'" without the element of hybridisation, with which I 

 am not now concerned. 



If a Darwinian says that these results have been reached 

 by " Artificial Selection " then it is for hitn to prove that it has 

 anything to do with them. 



The following are illustrations proving how a merely 

 mechanical force can affect plants, producing characters which 

 can not only be acquired but become fixed and hereditary. 



Pliny tells us that in his day the Greeks had discovered 

 a way of converting the " female " or long-rooted rape into the 

 " male " or turnip-rooted form by sowing the seed in a stiff 

 soil. I have already had a previous occasion to mention 

 the fact that M. Carriere in raising " radishes " from the wild 

 Raphafius Raphanistriim, which has a long wiry root, also 

 found that he obtained a larger proportion of long-rooted 

 forms in a loose soil, and of turnip-rooted ones in a stiff soil.^ 



Lastly, M. H. de Varigny refers to M. Languet de Sivry's 

 experiments with the wild carrot, and who met with precisely 

 similar results. ^ 



At the present day these various forms of roots have become 

 " fixed" and "come true" by heredity. We seem, therefore, 

 to have incontrovertible evidence of the heredity of somatic 

 characters originating from a merely more or less obstructive 

 soil. 



Moreover, these characters are all acquired long before 

 any sexual apparatus is present in the plants themselves that 

 first acquired them. 



^ Origiyie des Planies Domestiques demontree par la Culture du Radis 

 Sauvage. See above, p. 164. 



'^Experimental Evolution, by H. de Varigny, quoting from Societe 

 Royale et Ccntrale d^Agriculture, ser. 2, vol. ii., 1846-47, p. 539. 



