CHAPTER VI 
THE OLDER HYBRIDISTS 
THERE is one side of the practical study of heredity 
-which dates back to the middle of the seventeenth 
century—namely, that branch of the subject which is 
concerned with the hybridizing or artificial cross- 
breeding of different species and varieties of plants. 
Quite recently the great importance which attaches 
to this method of study has been realized once more, 
and the interest thus awakened has led to a closer 
examination of the accounts of experiments under- 
taken a century or more ago, with the result of showing 
that much of the work then carried out in this direc- 
tion had attained to quite an astonishing degree of 
excellence, In the brief sketch of the history of 
hybridizing work here following, account will be taken 
almost exclusively of experiments of which the in- 
terest is not historical only, but which possess an 
actual scientific value. Amongst other matters of 
interest, it will be found that more than one observer 
came very near to anticipating Mendel’s epoch- 
making discovery, and thus arriving at the clue which 
should unravel almost all the complex problems which 
beset the early hybridizers. 
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