TEACHING THE GLADIOLUS 

 NEW HABITS 



The Mutability of Species 



THE history of the growth of ideas shows 

 some curious paradoxes. As a minor illus- 

 tration, it may be recalled that an English 

 clergyman was doing his best — and a very good 

 best it was — to build up evidence of the mutability 

 of natural species at a time when it was rankest 

 heresy to suggest that species are mutable. 



The clergyman in question was the Honorable 

 and Reverend Dr. William Herbert, Dean of 

 Manchester. His work was carried out in the 

 early decades of the nineteenth century. He 

 was a horticulturist of great skill, and he labored 

 assiduously with many plants. And among 

 those with which he attained conspicuous and 

 striking results that seemed to belie the botanical 

 beliefs of the period, was the plant now familiar 

 in every garden as the gladiolus. 



The time when the important work of this cler- 

 ical amateur was carried out was one in which 



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