152 MAINE AGRICULTURAL E;xPE;RIME;NT STATION. I906. 



WORK OF THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT. 



Contemporaneous with Van Mons, was Thomas Andrew 

 Knight, often referred to as the father of modern horticulture ; 

 a man whose work as a careful, accurate, scientific investigator 

 of the phenomena of plant life, especially in its economic rela- 

 tions, is unrivaled even at the present time, and whose opinions 

 upon the studies of crossing and of plant development were 

 of the utmost importance. Knight was born in England in 

 1759 and died in 1838. His investigations of problems in 

 physiological botany have become classic and he brought the 

 same energy and thoroughness to his investigations of horti- 

 cultural problems. He gave particular attention to the physi- 

 ology and methods of crossing plants and was the first to 

 perfect the method of root grafting,* but his greatest work 

 was in the direction of the improvement of cultivated plants, by 

 breeding. He took up the question of the running out of varie- 

 ties and made great efforts to produce new ones. He was con- 

 fronted by the same problems which appealed to Van Mons, 

 but he approached the subject in a very different way. Knight 

 asked direct questions of nature, and never arrived at a general 

 theory of the improvement of plants, although he was not 

 without hypotheses concerning the phenomena he was studying. 



V^an Mons, as noted, was the first to demonstrate the impor- 

 tance of selection in the improvement of plants ; Knight was 

 the first to show the value of crossing for the same purpose. 

 As early as 1806 he wrote: "New varieties of species of fruit 

 will generally be better obtained by introducing the farina of 

 one variety of fruit into the blossoms of another, than by 

 propagating any from a single kind." f The varieties which 

 he raised, largely by means of crossing, included apples, pears, 

 plums, peaches, cherries and strawberries, as well as many 

 vegetables such as potatoes, peas, cabbages and others; but 

 more important than the new fruits, which were of immediate 

 and so-called practical value, was the contribution to the general 

 knowledge of plant life, and of the methods to be employed in 

 amelioration, which Knight gave freely for the benefit of all 

 mankind. 



* See Transactions of London Horticultural Society, 

 flbid. Vol. I, p. 38, 1806. 



