746 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
July 22, -1899. 
were even at that time quite aware of the impor¬ 
tance of their discovery, and forestalled our Herbert 
and Darwin in the inferences they drew from it. In 
proof of which allow me to quote from a work of 
Richard Bradley, called " New Improvements of 
Planting and Gardening, both Philosophical and 
Practical," published in 1717, cap. ii. After alluding 
to the discovery of the method of the fertilisation of 
plants, he says (p. 22) :— 
"By this knowledge we may alter the property 
and taste of any Fruit by impregnating the one with 
the Farina of another of the same class; as, for 
example, a Codlin with a Pearmain, which will 
occasion the Codlin so impregnated to last a longer 
time than usual, and be of a sharper taste; or if the 
Winter Fruits should be fecundated with the Dust of 
the Summer kinds, they will decay before their usual 
Time ; and it is from this accidental coupling of the 
Farina of one with the other, that in an Orchard 
where there is Variety of Apples, even the Fruit are 
gathered from the same Tree differ in their Flavour 
and Times of ripening; and, moreover, the Seeds of 
those Apples so generated, being changed by that 
Means from their Natural Qualities, will produce 
different kinds of Fruit if they are sown. 
“ 'Tis from this accidental coupling that proceeds 
the numberless varieties of fruits and flowers which 
are raised every day from Seed. . . . 
" Moreover, a curious Person may by this knowl¬ 
edge produce such rare kinds of Plants as have not 
yet been heard of, by making choice of two Plants 
for this Purpose, as are near alike in their Parts, but 
chiefly in their Flowers or Seed vessels; for example, 
the Carnation and Sweet William are in some 
respects alike,the Farina of the one will impregnate the 
other, and the Seed so enlivened will produce a 
Plant differing from either, as may now be seen in 
the garden of Mr. Thomas Fairchild, of Hoxton, a 
plant neither Sweet William nor Carnation but resemb¬ 
ling both equally, which was raised from theSwi of a 
Carnation that had been impregnated by the Farina 
of the Sweet William.” 
Here we have the first record of an artificially- 
produced hybrid, and you will remark that this was 
more than forty years before Kolreuter began his 
elaborate series of experiments. Fairchild was the 
friend and associate of Philip Miller, and of a small 
knot of “ advanced" thinkers and workers who 
banded themselves together into a " Society of 
Gardeners.” 
•' He is mentioned,” says Johnson in his " History 
of English Gardening,” " throughout Bradley’s 
works as a man of general information, and fond of 
scientific research, and in them are given many of 
his experiments to demonstrate the sexuality of 
plants, and their posession of a circulatory system. 
He was a commercial gardener at Hoxton, carrying 
on one of the largest trades as a nurseryman and 
florist that were then established. He was one of 
the largest English cultivators of a vineyard, of 
which he had one at Hoxton as late as 1722. He 
died in 1729, leaving funds for insuring the delivery 
of a sermon annually in the church of St. Leonard's, 
Shoreditch, on Whit Tuesday, * On the wonderful 
works of God in the Creation ; or On the certainty 
of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the 
certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of 
the creation. ' *’ 
Fairchild was thus not only the raiser of the first 
garden hybrid, but the originator of the flower 
services now popular in our churches. 
We do not hear much of intentionally-raised 
hybrids from this time till that of Linnaeus, in 
1759.* The great Swedish naturalist, having ob¬ 
served in his garden a Tragopogon, apparently a 
hybrid between T. pratensis and T. parvifolius, set 
to work to ascertain whether this conjecture was 
correct. He placed pollen of T. parvifolius on to 
the stigmas of T. pratensis, obtained seed, and from 
this seed the hybrid was produced. 
About the same time (that is, in 1760), Kolreuter 
began h>s elaborate experiments, but these were made 
with no practical aim, and thus for a time suffered 
unmerited oblivion. 
Some years after, the President of this Society, 
Thomas Andrew Knight, and specially Dean Her¬ 
bert, took up the work, with what splendid results 
you all know. 
It is curious, however, to note that objections and 
prejudices arose from two sources. Many worthy 
people objected to the production of hybrids, on the 
*Amcen. Acad., ed. Gilibert, vol. i., p. 212. 
ground that it was an impious interference with the 
laws of Nature. To such an extent was this pre¬ 
judice carried, that a former firm of nurserymen, at 
Tooting, celebrated in their day for the culture, 
amongst other things, of Heaths, in order to avoid 
wounding sensitive susceptibilities, exhibited as new 
species introduced from the Cape of Good Hope, 
forms which had really been originated by cross¬ 
breeding in their own nurseries. 
The best answer to this prejudice was supplied by 
Dean Herbert, whose orthodoxy was beyond 
suspicion. He, like Linnaeus before him, had 
observed the existence of natural hybrids, and he 
set to work experimentally to prove the justness of 
his opinion. He succeeded in raising, as Engle- 
heart has done since, many hybrid Narcissi, such as 
he had seen wild in the Pyrenees, by means of artifi¬ 
cial cross-breeding. If such forms exist in Nature, 
there can be no impropriety in producing them by 
the art of the gardener. 
In our own time, Reichenbach, judging from 
appearances, described as natural hybrids numerous 
Orchids. Veitch and others have confirmed the 
conjecture by producing by artificial fertilisation the 
very same forms which the botanist described. 
It remains only to speak of another respectable 
but mistaken prejudice that has existed against 
the extension of hybridisation. I am sorry to say 
this has been on the part of the botanists. It is not 
indeed altogether surprising that the botanists should 
have objected to the inconvenience and confusion 
introduced into their systems of classification by the 
introduction of hybrids and mongrels, and that they 
should object to hybrid species, and much more to 
hybrid genera ; but it would be very unscientific to 
prefer the interests of our systems to the extension 
of the truth. 
I may mention two cases where scepticism still 
exists as to the real nature of certain plants; 
Clematis Jackmani of our gardens, raised, as is 
alleged, by Mr. Jackman, of Woking (Gardeners' 
Chronicle, 1864, p. 825), was considered by M. 
Decaisne and M. Lavallee* to be a real Japanese 
species, and not a hybrid. This may be so, but there 
is no absolute impossibility in the conjecture that 
the Japanese plant and the cultivated plant origi¬ 
nated in the same way. Again, Mr. Culverwell's 
supposed hybrid between the Strawberry and the 
Raspberry has been pronounced to be no hybrid, but 
to be Rubus Leesii. But what, we may ask, is 
Rubus Leesii ? It appears to be a sterile form more 
closely allied to the Raspberry than to the Straw¬ 
berry. Is it not possible that Mr. Culverwell has 
produced it artificially ? 
The days when "species” were deemed sacro¬ 
sanct, and "systems” were considered "natural” 
have passed, and Darwin, just as Herbert did in 
another way, has taught us to welcome hybridisation 
as one means of ascertaining the true relationships 
of plants and the limitations of species and genera. 
Darwin's researches and experiments on cross¬ 
fertilisation came as a revelation to many practical 
experimenters, and we recall with something akin to 
humiliation the fact that we had been for years 
exercising ourselves about the relative merits of 
"pin eyes” and "thrum eyes” in Primroses, 
without ever perceiving the vast significance of these 
apparently trifling details of structure. 
It would occupy too much time were I to dilate 
upon the labours of Gaertner, of Godron, of Naudin, 
of Naegeli, of Millardet, of Lord Penzance, of 
Engleheart, and many others. Nor need I do more 
than make a passing reference to the wonderful 
morphological results obtained by the successive 
crossings and inter-crossings of the tuberous 
Begonias, changes so remarkable that a French 
botanist was even constrained to found a new genus, 
Lemoinea, so widely have they deviated from the 
typical Begonias. 
For scientific reasons, then, no less than for 
practical purposes, the study of cross-breeding is 
most important, and we welcome the opportunity 
that this conference affords of extending our know¬ 
ledge of the ljfe history of plants, in full confidence 
that it will not only increase our stock of knowledge, 
but also enable us still further to apply it to the 
benefit of mankind. 
Scientific Investigation. 
W. Bateson, Esq., M.A., F.R.S , Cambridge, gave a 
lecture on "Hybridisation and Cross-breeding as a 
♦Lavallee, Les Clematites a Grands Fleurs, p. vi. and p. 9, 
tab. iv. : Clematis Hakonensis. 
Method of Scientific Investigation." He said it was 
comparatively easy to follow the beaten track of 
collecting species already well known, or at least 
obtained from a source for us, for here little or no 
mental effort is needed, whereas to raise by cross¬ 
breeding something new and worthy requires no in¬ 
considerable amount of mental effort, and very care¬ 
ful thinking out. These are facts which hybridisers 
know very well. The help which careful hybridising 
will give to natural history in clearing up the theories 
on evolution will be so valuable, they are, indeed, so 
valuable that I would call on every person to do the 
best they can towards these investigations. It means 
some time and work, but the results will be truly 
worth it all. Among many with whom I meet and 
discuss this question I find many false representa¬ 
tions as to what are the aims or objects of cross¬ 
breeders as a body. It has been said that no one 
can define a species, and while a great many species 
are shaded into each other, yet there are hundreds 
and hundreds of species which are sharply defined. 
It is merely slurring facts to say there are no 
such things as species. You all know and can under¬ 
stand the theories respecting initial variation, that 
no offspring ever resembles the parents in all 
respects, and that by crossing species different 
characters are the outcome which by long and slow 
processes the accumulation of fixed species is 
brought about, and accepted by the fitness of these 
species to take their part in actual life. But every¬ 
one of us knows how very difficult it is to apply 
these reasonings to bear us out when trying to show 
how species A rose from species B, after the former's 
characteristics nave become widely different from 
the primary variations. It is very difficult to see 
how from such small primary variation such won¬ 
derful developments can have evolved. 
Now on such points as these the work of the 
cross-breeder bears directly. We collect and we 
compare from anatomy, but on the amount of varia¬ 
tion and the degree to which variety is obliterated 
these are two questions which for answer we must 
apply to the cross-breeders; for we a'l know how 
enormous the variations are. We need only men¬ 
tion Rhododendrons, Narcissi, Begonias, or anything 
in fact in the range of horticulture, to show how 
quickly such variations come about. It is possible 
in many cases to conceive that while the specific 
form is fairly abundant, intermediate forms may be 
scarce. At the same time it was given as a thing to 
lay hold of that the varying form between species is 
comparatively frequent. This clears our first views 
on variation, 
Mr. Bateson continued his references on the 
variations and substitutions among species, &c., and 
gave a parallel from the animal kingdom (Lepidop- 
tera) where the Peppered-Moth has or is becoming 
gradually superseded by a dark form which arose in 
the North of England some time in the 'forties. 
Speaking of the hairiness and smoothness as typical 
forms of variation, he showed instances where 
Matthiola incana had been crossed with a glabrous 
(smooth) species, and the offspring of the two (the 
smooth and the hairy) was exactly divisible into two 
groups, one half hairy, and the other half smooth. 
From Prof. Hugo de Vries, of Amsterdam, he had 
secured Lychnis vespertina, and upon experiments 
by Miss E. R. Sanders, Cambridge, with this and a 
smooth form, the offspring proved to be entirely 
hairy, so that here there was no impression at all 
by the smooth one on the hairy form. When the 
hybrid seedlings were left to be fertilised with their 
own pollen, the next generation broke up into smooth 
and hairy forms in a varying proportion of hairiness 
or smoothness. Biscutella laevigata, of Switzer¬ 
land, was another plant with which experiments 
have been made. These tests of cross-breeding 
reveal at once the different physiological relation¬ 
ships underlying variety and type. We talk of 
"species” and "varieties” as though the pheno¬ 
mena denoted by these terms are homogeneous. By 
the test of breeding it is shown that whole sets of 
distinct phenomena are confused together under 
these headings. Using the useful metaphor of 
chemical science it is by cross-breeding that the 
genetic properties of species and varieties must be 
examined, as the affinities of chemical bodies are. 
In this way the confused mass of contradictory 
properties, which are now attributed to species, may 
be unravelled, and we may be delivered from fruit¬ 
less debates on this unprofitable subject. We 
cannot plump the laws of phenomena together 
