Making The Gladiolus 

 Surpass Itself 



Teaching The Plant New Habits 



THE history of the growth of ideas shows 

 some curious paradoxes. As a minor 

 illustration in point, it may be recalled that 

 an English clergyman was doing his best — and a 

 very good best it was — to build up evidence of the 

 mutability of natural species at a time when it was 

 rankest heresy to suggest that species are mutable. 



The clergyman in question was the Honorable 

 and Reverend Dr. William Herbert, Dean of Man- 

 chester. His work was carried out in the early 

 decades of the nineteenth century. He was a horti- 

 culturist of great skill, and he labored assiduously 

 with many plants. And among those with which 

 he attained conspicuous and striking results that 

 seemed to belie the botanical beliefs of the period, 

 was the plant now familiar in every garden as the 

 Gladiolus. 



The time when the important work of this 



[Volume IX — Chapter VI] 



