194 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
Bauhin, Ch. Estienne, T. Dalechamp, &cc.—have described a tolerably large 
number of these varieties, especially in fruit trees, where they M ere the most 
apparent; but one should in vain search for their origin in their M'ritings. 
Though they let us vaguely suppose that they are, or may be, the produce of 
cultivation, none of them says positively that any particular new variety sprang 
from any other; none of them explains why they have gone on multiplying 
from age to age. Are these new forms, then, as has been recently alleged, 
real species, which remained unrecognised up to the time when it was proposed 
to submit them to cultivation ? or are they only modifications of long-known 
species, endowed with the faculty of assuming different habits, according to 
circumstance of place and climate ? It may seem astonishing that such a 
question should be brought before the Academy, so natural does it seem to believe 
that species are subject to variation ; but we shall see presently that this question 
is not one of those which we ought to leave without examination; if it is 
important as regards practical agriculture, it is not less so as regards science 
itself. 
Two schools, or I should rather say two different hypotheses, divide botanists 
at the present moment. The most ancient, M'hich I may call that of the 
Linnsean school, admits the variability of species within limits, M'hich, to say 
the truth, it is not always easy to define; hence those large, polymorphous, and 
sometimes vaguely-defined species, though in general easily characterised by a 
short specific character. The other school, which is more especially modern, 
and M r hicli I believe may be called the school of immutability, denies, in the 
most formal manner, variability in the vegetable kingdom. In its opinion, 
specific forms are never in any degree modified, and if two congeneric plants 
present appreciable differences, however feeble they may be, these two plants 
are species radically distinct from the origin of things. From this point of vieM r , 
which has found in M. Jordan of Lyons a very eloquent and conscientious 
defender, all races and all varieties admitted by the other school become so 
many species ; and so local floras are immensely increased when they have for 
their authors men of this stamp. 
That Linnaean botanists have made species of too great latitude, by uniting 
under the same specific name forms which are really distinct, is M’hat I am far 
from contesting; but these are errors of detail which are inevitable in a first 
review of the general flora of the u r orld, inconveniences which experience 
corrects every day. But we should be wrong, in my opinion, if we concluded 
from thence the condemnation of the principle which has directed them—viz., 
the variability of specific types. We must, however, aoknoM r ledge that their 
opponents have a right to require a proof of this variability, which is almost 
always more hypothetic than matter of demonstration. It is here, in fact, that 
we have the point of the question; for if what we have considered as* simple 
alterations of a more general type which is really immutable, if our supposed 
varieties are species in spite of their apparent affinities, we must allow that our 
adversaries are right, and admit into our descriptive catalogues all these slight 
species, whatever may be their number, and however embarrassing a too extended 
nomenclature may become. But is it in this direction that w r e really have im¬ 
proved ? above all, is this the truth ? Many good authorities doubt it; not 
only are they afraid of seeing descriptive botany degenerate into a science of 
words, but they ask besides, if, after all, the immutability of forms is better 
proved than their variability ? One way alone is open of solving the difficulty ; 
it is useless any longer to argue; M r e must observe and bring forward facts, and 
it is with this view that I have undertaken the experiments with M-hich I have 
to occupy the Academy of Sciences.' 
In the eyes of M. Jordan, all our races and all our varieties of fruit trees, 
