1894. ] James Logan. 309 
“The following essay in Latin was published at Leyden in 
1739: It is now translated and reprinted here, that the sen- 
timents contained in it may be submitted to more general 
consideration. Our author’s address in choosing and con- 
ducting experiments, and his capacity for the abstrusest re- 
searches would doubtless have enabled him to have given to 
the world ample satisfaction on this intricate subject had he 
been permitted to prosecute his inquiries. But his country 
called him [Cincinnatus like] to more important affairs, and 
kept him constantly engaged in employments more immedi- 
ately beneficial to society. 
‘The translator has endeavored to keep close to his author’s 
sense. In point of expression, he fears, he often falls short of 
the original, the style whereof is nervous, concise and truly 
Roman. The Latin botanical terms are mostly retained, as 
we have not yet words in our own tongue to express the va- 
rious parts of plants and flowers, which the growing science 
is obliged to describe, and to explain by terms adopted from 
other languages, etc. J. F.” » 
he experiments, given in the quaint style of the period; 
speak for themselves. 
“As several doubts had formerly occurred to me, in re- 
Spect to the generation of both plants and animals, when I 
first heard of the farina foecundans, or impregnating male 
ust, I conceived great hopes that these would be easily 
solved, and the whole of this intricate affair receive consider- 
able light from the discovery. And as I had long ago ob- 
Served with surprize, the singular way of growth of our Indian 
wheat or maize, I judged it, of all plants I had seen, or per- 
haps of any that nature produces, the most proper one for ex- 
periments of this kind. Indian wheat grows to the height of 
SIX, eight and sometimes ten feet. At the top of the stalk, 
It bears a thready tuft or tassel (called by Malpighi muscar- 
lum), furnished with apices [anthers] which yield the farina. 
rom the joints of the stalks below, the ears grow out, which 
are six, eight, ten and sometimes even twelve inches long. 
hese consist of a pretty solid substance, about an inch thick, 
Set quite around with grains regularly disposed in rows, In a 
very beautiful manner. Generally there are eight such rows, 
olten ten, sometimes twelve, and I once saw sixteen. There 
“re Commonly forty grains in each row, more or less; which in 
their first rudiments, and whilst the stalk they grow upon 1s 
