REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 



left prizes by his will, to be distributed for the best treatises on the 

 promotion of agriculture and of the different branches of rural oeco- 

 nomy. No work could, in this respeft, be more patriotic or more 

 important than that of Lin n ^us. The first prize given since the making 

 of this will was therefore adjudged to him, by the unanimous assent of 

 the academy. It consisted of two gold medals, value twenty ducats, bear- 

 ing the arms of Count Sparre, with this inscription: 



SUPERSTES IN SCIENTIIS AMOR FREDERICI HEN- 



RICI SPARRE. THE SURVIVING LOVE OF THE 



SCIENCES OF FREDERICK HENRY SPARRE. 



A still more distinguished honour, which was also a public triumph 

 of his system, was afterwards conferred on LiNNiEus in Russia. The 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences at Petersburgh set a prize of one hun- 

 dred ducats, in the year 1759, "pon the best treatise, in which the 

 truth of the sex of the plants should either be confirmed or refuted; by 

 new arguments and experiments, exclusive of those already known, 

 and by which a preliminary historico-physical description of all those 

 parts of the plants which contribute any ways towards the fruftifica- 

 tion and perfedion of the the seeds should be communicated. — This 

 problem interested too much the empire of the Linn^an system for 

 its author to remain a quiet speftator. Versed in the subjeft which 

 was to be decided, he wrote a treatise*, in which he proved the sex 



• Sexum Plantariim (these were the expressions of the problem) argumentis et experi- 

 mentis, prseter adhuc jam cognita, vel corroborare vel impugnare, praemissa expositione his- 

 torica& fhysica omnium plantas partium, quae aliquidad fecundationem et perfeftionem semi- 

 nis cont'erre tradantur. 



Printed afterwards at Petenburgb in 1760, in one volume quarto, 42 pages. See Amanitai. 

 Acad. edit. Schreber. vol. x. 



of 



