14 LIFE OF 



well as the almost endless profusion of beautiful flowers with 

 which the process of hybridization has adorned our green- 

 houses and flower-gardens. 



The following extract from a letter from Sir Joseph Banks 

 shows how new to the horticulturists of the year 1798 was this 

 system, and how important he foresaw the results would be. 



" I have, some time ago, read your work on the culture of 

 cyder fruits with much pleasure. Your experiments on apples 

 and grapes must be very tedious, but surely the success of those 

 on annual plants will induce you to persevere. The chances of 

 a valuable offspring must be materially multiplied by the 

 stimulus of a different male ; who can tell but that this, through 

 the medium of bees, or of the wind, is the only real origin of 

 new varieties ? When you consider your experiments upon the 

 fecundation of plants, and improving the kinds of them by 

 coupling the best males and females of each sort, as unimport- 

 ant matters, you really act very differently from what I feel 

 myself disposed to do on the occasion. I am loth to speak in 

 a dictatorial style, if my opinion differs from yours ; but I do 

 confess, I think no experiments promise more public utility 

 than those for improving the breeds of vegetables." 



From this time Mr. Knight continued to contribute to the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society the results of numerous expe- 

 riments on the " Fecundation of plants," the cause of the 

 " Rise of the sap in trees," the " Vessels through which it 

 ascends and descends," the " Causes which influence the 

 direction of the root," and a variety of similar subjects. In all 

 these researches, the ingenuity and originality of the experi- 

 ments, and the care with which the results were given, were so 

 great, that the most captious of subsequent writers have 

 admitted the correctness and value of the facts established by 

 him : though the inferences he drew from them have, in some 

 instances, been disputed. The great object he always had in 

 view, and which he pursued through his long life with unde- 

 viating steadiness of purpose, was utility ; and it was only when 

 facts had some great practical bearing that he applied himself 



