JOUENAL 



OF THE 



Royal Horticultural Society. 



Vol. XXVI. 1901. 

 Part I. 



EXPERIMENTS IN PLANT HYBRIDISATION. 



By Gregor Mendel. 



With an Introductory Note by W. Batesox, M.A., F.R.S. 



The original jmper, of ivhich the following pages are a translation, was 

 imhlished by Gregor Mendel in the year 1865 in the Abhandlungen des 

 naturforschenden Vereines in Brilnn," Bd. ii\ That periodical is little 

 known, and probably there are not half a dozen copies in the libraries 

 of this country. It icill consequently be a matter for satisfaction that 

 the Boyal Horticultural Society has undertaken to publish a translation- 

 of this extraordinarily valuable contribution to biological science. 



The conclusion ivhich stands out as the chief result of MendeVs 

 admirable experiments is of course the proof that in resjject of certain 

 pairs of differentiating characters the germ-cells of a hybrid, or cross-bred, 

 are pure, being carriers and transmitters of either the one character or 

 the other, not both. That he succeeded in demonstrating this law for the 

 simple cases icith ivhich he worked it is scarcely possible to doubt. 



In so far as MendeVs law applies, therefore, tlie conclusion is forced 

 upon us that a living organism is a complex of characters, of which sonu, 

 at least, are dissociable and are capable of being replaced by others. We 

 thus reach the conception of unit-characters, which may be rearranged in 

 the formation of the reproductive cells. It is hardly too much to say 

 that the experiments which led to this advance in knowledge are worthy to 

 rank with those that laid the foundation of the Atomic laws of Chemistry. 



To what extent MendeVs conclusions will be found to apply to other 

 'Characters, and to other plants and animals, further experimoit alone can 

 show. Thougli little has yet been done, we alread y know a considerable group 

 of cases in which the law ]iolds, but ice also have tolerably clear evidence 

 that many phenomena of cross-breeding point to the coexistence of other laws 

 of a much liiglier order of complexity. When the paper before us ivas 

 written Mendel apparently inclined to the view that, with vwdification^r 



B 



