ON CROSSES AND HYBRID INTERMIXTURES 
IN VEGETABLES. 
The first experiments, with a view to ascertain the possi- 
bility of producing hybrid vegetables, appears to have been 
made in Germany, by Kolreuter, who published reports of 
his proceedings in the Acts of the Petersburgh Academy be- 
tween 50 and 60 years ago. Lycium, digitalis, nicotiana, 
datura,- and lobelia, were the chief plants with which he 
worked successfully, and as I have found nothing in his re- 
ports to the best of my recollection opposed to my own general 
observations, it is unnecessary to state more concerning his 
mules than the fact, that he was the father of such experiments. 
They do not seem to have been at all followed up by others, 
or to have attracted the attention of cultivators or botanists 
as they ought to have done; and nothing else material on 
the subject has fallen under my notice of earlier date than 
Mr. Knight’s report of his crosses of fruit-trees, and my own 
of ornamental flowers, in the Transactions of the Horticultural 
Society of London. Those papers attracted the public notice, 
and appear to have excited many persons both in this country 
and abroad to similar experiments. 
In the year 1819, having for some years previous paid 
attention to the production of hybrid vegetables, but ignorant 
of the experiments of Kolreuter, I was induced, rather 
against my own inclination, to address some detailed obser- 
vations on the subject to the Horticultural Society, which 
were published in the transactions of that body. It was, I 
say, against my inclination, because I was fully aware, that 
a much longer course of experiments was necessary, in order 
to obtain any results sufficiently certain to give stability to my 
views. It is, however, satisfactory to find at the present day, 
after the attention of botanists and cultivators has been fully 
called to the subject during the space of many years, and a 
multitude of experiments carried on by a variety of persons, 
that, although our knowledge of its mysteries is still very 
