6 



GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CXTEtS FAMILY. 



the details of existence, and cast inflexibly the 

 mold in which all beings must bo modeled. 



This great truth, which cannot be hidden from 

 the view of the careful observer, nevertheless 

 seems to be with difficulty reconciled with a 

 number of phenomena which are every day pre- 

 sented to view. 



On the other band, we are reassured in these 

 principles by the example of all the primitive 

 species of plants, which are always met with on 

 the earth in the same form under which they 

 have existed for many centuries; we are con- 

 vinced of this fact, by the bringing together and 

 comparison of those remains of plants found in 

 excavations, and by the models which have been 

 transmitted to us by painting, sculpture, or de- 

 scriptions of the ancients. 



On the other hand, we know not to what 

 should be attributed all those new species or va- 

 rieties, of which, it beeuiti, our ancestors had no 

 idea, and still more those sub-varieties and those 

 monsters which arc daily developed under our 

 own eyes, cither by the seed, or some chance, of 

 which we as yet know not the principle. 



It is already half a century since we succeeded 

 in establishing order in the multitude of these 

 new races, which have been divided into two 

 classes. The first is the hybrids ; the second, the 

 varieties. 



Linnaeus has wrung from nature the secret of 

 the formation of the first ; it remains to seek the 

 principles according to which the second are pro- 

 duced. 



I will call the hybrids by the name of the 

 species entering into their formation, because it 

 seems to me that every individual which deviates 

 partially from the characteristics of its type, and 

 participates in the properties of another species, 

 is something more than a variety, and I will re- 

 serve this last name for those new plants whose 

 secondary characteristics are modified by any 

 cause whatever without departing from the 

 species. 



Without this distinction I would be embar- 

 rassed in determining, for example, to what 

 species, in quality or variety, the hermaphrodite 

 orange belongs (Cifrus aurantium indicum Umo- 

 citratum folio ct fnictu mixto), which partakes 

 of the lemon, the orange, and the citron, aud it 

 would necessarily follow that this pretended va- 

 riety would be found ranked in the same line as 

 the blood-red orange \iee(Cit-ruti&arantum8inen86 

 Meroclmnticum fructu sanguineo) wjiidi has only 

 the characteristics of the single orange of which 

 it is a variety 



I will not stop to trace the theory of the hy- 

 brids. This system is already so well known 

 that I can add nothing to its development. I 

 shall occupy myself in seeking tbo cause of the 

 formation ot varetiee, and will present my theory 

 as the result f mnny experiments and much ob- 

 servation, which I invite botanists to repeat in 

 order better to determine their phenomena and 

 their consequences. 



In all times it has been observed with aston- 

 ishnieut that nature appears more inclined to 

 give us wild than fine varieties. It is rare that 

 a choice fruit is reproduced from the seed ; and 

 we see, for example, that the seed of the most 

 delicate butter pear regularly gives us only wild 

 fruit, whose acrid fruit, without juico, in no way 



resembles the species from which it is descended. 



Even when chance procures us somo ftie 

 variety, it is nevertheless not always equal to the 

 fruit that has produced it, and as this chance 

 seldom occurs, and as it is very difficult to estab- 

 lish such recurrence, because it is not foreseen, 

 and because it has fallen but little under the eyes 

 of enlightened cultivators, it has generally been 

 believed that these varieties are due ouly to the 

 graft, to cultivating, or to the climate. Some- 

 times, indeed, botanists have allowed themselves 

 to be imposed upon by superficial and deceitful 

 gardeners, who, seeing themselves the possessors 

 of several of these new species without knowing 

 their origin, have imagined and believed that 

 some marvellous operation has taken place, and 

 supposed them due to grafts, which existed not 

 in nature, aud which would not give such a re- 

 sult if they did exist. Heiicc the different agri- 

 cultural systems which have reigned for several 

 centuries, and of which a part reigns still to day, 

 even among enlightened agriculturists. 



There are, for instance, few cultivators who 

 arc not convinced that the sour orange is the 

 type of the species, and that all seed from an 

 orange tree, even though it be a sweet one, gives 

 only sour orange trees. This pretended phe 

 nomenou, which has beeu believed on the laith 

 of the cultivators, without ever being determined 

 by exact experiments, has been generalized re- 

 specting almost all fruit-bearing plants; and it 

 has beeu established, as was supposed, in prin- 

 ciple, that the wild fruit was the type of the 

 species, and that fine fruits, being only individu- 

 als improved by art, could produce by their seeds 

 only the type of which they arc the conservators, 

 or, in other words, individuals in a. state of nature 

 known under the name of wild plants. 



Other agriculturists have imagined that the 

 seed of the sweet orange produced sour or bitter 

 orange trees only when taken from a graft of the 

 sweet prauge placed upon the sour orange tree, 

 and this system has been extended to the other 

 species of fruit, such as the apple, peach, pear, 

 and other trees. They have, perhaps, been forced 

 to this modification in the theory of artificial im- 

 provement by the example of some individuals 

 of choice fruit which they have soon to be pro- 

 duced from the seed, and as they could not con- 

 ceal the truth of these accidents, and as they saw, 

 moreover, that such a case but rarely occurred, 

 they imagined that those fruits which reproduced 

 without degeneration when taken from a seed- 

 ling, lost that property whenever they were taken 

 from a graft on a wild tree ; and they even de- 

 luded themselves so far as to believe that the 

 pericarp followed the nature of the graft, while 

 the seed followed the nature of the tree receiving 

 the graft. 



All these prejudices have prevented cultiva- 

 tors from adopting the method of multiplication 

 offered by nature, and, persuaded that the seed 

 could give only a wild product, they have con- 

 demned all seedlings to be grafted. * , 



But these artificial methods ouly preserved the 

 species already acquired. They multiplied the 

 individuals but never renewed the race, and con- 

 sequently it still remains to be discovered in what 

 manner those varieties were obtained, which 

 they could not deny were unknown to our an- 

 or? tor*. In order to pfUWv thi* nntnrnl inquir- 



