THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, ESQ. 13 



impregnating blossoms with the pollen of a different variety, 

 possessing qualities of a contrary nature, but calculated, if com- 

 bined with those of the kind operated upon, to produce excel- 

 lence, and by then raising plants from the seeds so produced, 

 the chances of obtaining valuable varieties would be considerably 

 increased ; and though many of the apples at first raised from 

 seed in this manner did not answer his expectations, he event- 

 ually succeeded in creating new varieties of many fruits and 

 excellent vegetables, which have long been cultivated and highly 

 prized by the horticulturists of England, and probably by those 

 of most civilised countries to whose climate they are suited. 



The idea of improving fruits by crossing seems to have been 

 entertained by Lord Bacon, though he was ignorant of the 

 method of accomplishing it. After stating the effects of this 

 course in producing mules in the animal world, he thus pro- 

 ceeds : " The compounding and mixture of plants is not found 

 out, which, nevertheless, if it be possible, is more at command 

 than that of living creatures ; wherefore it were one of the most 

 noble experiments touching plants to find this art ; for so you 

 may have a great variety of new plants and flowers yet 

 unknown. Grafting doth it not : that mendeth the fruit, or 

 doubleth the flower, but it hath not the power to make a new 

 kind for the scion ever overruleth the stock*." 



If to Lord Bacon must be assigned the merit of having first 

 suggested the possibility of producing new fruits in this manner, 

 it was reserved for Mr. Knight to discover the means by which 

 those "most noble experiments" were to be rendered suc- 

 cessful ; and to his discoveries we undoubtedly owe the innu- 

 merable varieties of excellent fruits that supply our tables, as 



sown with kernels of the best and soundest apples and pears, and to leave the 

 likeliest plants only in the natural place, removing others, as time and occasion 

 may require ;" but this practice does not appear to have been general, for 

 Evelyn in his " Sylva," published some years afterwards, says " Nothing is 

 more facile than to raise new kinds of apples, ad infinitum, from kernels ; yet in 

 that apple county (Hereford), so much addicted to orchards, we could never 

 encounter more than two or three persons that did believe it." 

 * Quarto edit. 1790, p. 97. 



