C 39 2 3 
XXIII. 0« the comparative Influence of Male and Female Parents 
on their Offspring. By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. 
In a Letter to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart . K. B, 
P. R.S . 
Read June 22, 1809. 
My Dear Sir, 
I have been engaged, during many years, in experiments on 
fruit-trees, of which the object has been to discover the best 
means of forming new varieties, that may be found better 
calculated for the climate of Britain than those at present 
cultivated. In this inquiry my efforts have been always most 
successful, when I propagated from the males of one variety 
and the females of another ; and I was enabled, by the same 
means, to ascertain more accurately, than had previously been 
done, the comparative influence of the male and female parent 
on the character of the offspring. The analogy that subsists 
between plants and animals, in almost every thing which re- 
spects generation, induced me also to attend very minutely to 
similar experiments in which I engaged on some species of 
animals ; and as the repetition of such experiments would 
necessarily require a very considerable space of time, and as 
the results seem to lead to conclusions that may be of public 
utility, I have thought the following account sufficiently inte- 
resting to induce me to address it to you. 
Linnaeus conceived, that the character of the male parent 
predominated in the exterior parts both of plants and animals; 
