344 ON THE INFLUENCE OF MALE AND FEMALE PARENTS. 



distinct characters and permanent habits, generally, though with some 

 few exceptions, inherit much more of the character of the female than of 

 the male parent ; and the same remark is applicable in some respects to 

 the animal world, as I shall point out in the succeeding narrative. 



My experiments were made on many different species of fruit-trees ; 

 but most extensively, and under the most advantageous circumstances, 

 on the apple-tree ; and as the results were all in unison with each other, 

 it will be necessary to trouble you only with an account of some of the 

 experiments which were made on that species of fruit-tree. 



The apple, or crab of England, and of Siberia, however dissimilar in 

 habit and character, appear to constitute a single species only ; in which 

 much variation has been effected by the influence of climate on successive 

 generations : for the two varieties rarely breed together, and the off- 

 spring, whether raised from the seeds of the Siberian or British variety, 

 were prolific to a most exuberant extent. But there was a very consider- 

 able degree of dissimilarity in the appearance of the offspring ; and the 

 leaves and general habits of each presented an obvious prevalence of the 

 character of the female parent. The buds of those plants which had 

 sprung from the seeds of the cultivated apple did not unfold quite so 

 early in the spring ; and their fruits generally exceeded very consider- 

 ably in size those which were produced by the trees which derived their 

 existence from the seeds of the Siberian crab. There was also a preva- 

 lence of the character of the female parent in the form of the fruit ; but 

 the same degree of prevalence did not extend to the quality and flavour 

 of the fruit ; for the richest apple that I have ever seen, and which 

 afforded expressed juice of much higher specific gravity than any other, 

 sprang from a seed of yellow Siberian crab. 



The prevalence of the character of the female parent in the preceding 

 cases may possibly be suspected to have arisen from some error or neg- 

 lect of accuracy in making the experiments ; but I do not conceive that 

 any such errors could have existed ; for the trees of each variety were 

 trained to walls, where they blossomed much before any others of the 

 same species, and the stamina were always carefully extracted, whilst 

 immature, from every blossom, which I intended to afford seeds. The 

 remaining blossoms of the trees were also totally destroyed, and no other 

 blossoms, except those from which the pollen was taken, were ever un- 

 folded in the neighbourhood, in the season when the experiments were 

 made ; and I have also invariably declined to draw any conclusion from 

 the appearance of a plant in which I could not certainly distinguish some 

 portion of the features and character of the supposed male parent. 



