298 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vor. XXIX, 1922 
brides, des variantes et des varieties en general, et sur celles de la 
famille des Cucurbitacees en particular,” which appeared in 1826 
in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Vol. 18. 
Sageret made some discoveries that clearly anticipated our 
modern knowledge of segregation, and he was able to furnish 
what was, for the time, a fairly satisfactory scientific explanation 
for the reappearance of ancestral characters. The experiment 
upon which his conclusions were primarily based was a cross in 
which a muskmelon was the female and a cantaloupe the male par- 
ent. Each plant was regarded as a relatively pure or type repre- 
sentation of its kind. In stating the results of the cross, Sageret for 
the first time in the history of plant hybridization, aligned the 
characters of the parents in opposing or contrasting pairs after 
Mendel’s fashion forty years later. Following is the list of con- 
trasting parental characters as Sageret gives them. 
Muskmelon (female) 
1. Flesh white 
2. Seeds white 
3. Skin smooth 
4. Ribs slightly evident 
5. Flavor sugary and very 
acid at the same time. 
Cantaloupe ( Male ) 
1 . Flesh yellow 
2. Seeds yellow 
3. Skin netted 
4. Ribs strongly pronounced 
5. Flavor sweet 
In the two hybrid fruits reported upon, the characters were 
not blended or intermediate at all, but were clearly and distinctly 
those of the one or the other parent. 
First hybrid 
1. Flesh yellow 
2. Seeds white 
3. Skin netted 
4. Ribs rather pronounced 
5. Flavor acid 
Second hybrid 
1 . Flesh yellowish 
2. Seeds white 
3. Skin smooth 
4. Ribs wanting 
5. Flavor sweet 
Sageret even uses, for the first time in the literature of plant 
hybridization, the word “dominate” with reference to characters 
in crossing, in the following words. Speaking of the inheritance 
of flavor in various melon crosses, he says, “The acid flavor of 
the muskmelon is encountered in the forms of the cantaloupe and 
the snake-melon, in others, the form of the cantaloupe dominated.” 
Summing up the results of his experiments in a general con- 
clusion, he says, with regard to the natural explanation that in a 
hybrid there will be a complete or partial fusion of the parental 
