16 On the Production of Hybrid Vegetables. 



made, that several plants, which I have raised, are not only, 

 in the fair sense of the word, hybrid, but also fertile ; and if 

 they should perpetuate themselves by seed, without revert- 

 ing to the form of either parent, they will be entitled to be 

 considered by the Botanist as distinct species. 



If it is meant, only that a fertile offspring may be supposed 

 to intimate, that the two parent plants have branched out from 

 one common stock since the creation of the world, I am fully 

 disposed to admit the truth of that position ; but I should go 

 much further, considering that many species, which we can- 

 not now, by artificial means, prevail upon to intermix, have 

 also descended from one original ; and I doubt very much 

 whether such a multiplication of distinct species may not also 

 have taken place in the animal and insect tribes ; but, to 

 produce an intermixture between species that may have so 

 diverged, the will of the animal must consent, while that of 

 the plant need not be consulted. 



I suspect thatin the early periods of the world, there existed 

 only the distinct genera of plants, or heads of families,. not, 

 however, exactly according to the present divisions of Bo- 

 tanists ; who, indeed, are perpetually at variance with each 

 other, as to the features which are sufficient to constitute a 

 variety, a species, or a distinct genus. The lapse of centuries 

 and diversity of soil and climate have probably wrought the 

 most wide and permanent distinctions between vegetables, that 

 have originated from a common stock, possibly even between 

 the arborescent Ferns of the Andes, and the herbaceous in- 

 habitants of our forests; but I should neither decide, if I 

 found it impossible to produce a fertile offspring from the 

 intermixture of any two plants, that they must have been 



