CHAPTER V 

 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF HEREDITY 



43. Gregor Mendel. — Two of the most important 

 contributions ever made to biological science, namely, 



Fig. 39. — Gregor Mendel, at the age of 40. His theory of alternate 

 inheritance (Mendelism) , based largely on experiments with the garden 

 pea, is the most important and most fruitful contribution ever made to 

 the study of inheritance. 



Mendel's laws of heredity, and his method of investigating 

 them, were made by a teacher who studied plants as a pas- 

 time because he loved to do it. This man was Gregor 



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