210 
REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 
i 
left prizes by his will, to be distributed for the best treatises on the 
promotion of agriculture and of the different branches of rural ceco- 
nomy. No work could, in this respect, be more patriotic or more 
important than that of Linnaeus. 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 Linnaeus in Russia. The 
Imperial Academy of Sciences at Pctersburgh set a prize of one hun- 
dred ducats, in the year 1759, u P on t ^' e ^ est treat i se > 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 perfeftion 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 subjeH which 
was to be decided, he wrote a treatise*, in which he proved the sex 
* Sexum Plantarum (these were the expressions of the problem) argumentis et experi- 
ment;^ pneteradhuc jam cognita, vel corroborare vel impugnare, prasmissaexpositionehis- 
torica&physica omnium plantte partium, quae aliquidad fecundationem et perfeftionem semi- 
nis conferre tradantur. 
Printed afterwauls at Petersburgb in 1760, in one volume quarto, 4* P a S es ‘ See -Amcemtat. 
Acad. edit. Schreoe.. vol. x. 
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