Transcriber's Notes:
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
FOOTNOTES:
FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER I.
[1] In Mendel's Principles of Heredity (Cambridge University Press, 1909) I have dealt with this subject, giving an account of the principal facts discovered up to the beginning of 1909.
[2] Matthioli Opera, Ed. 1598, p. 8, originally published 1565.
[3] Ray's instances relate to Kales, and in most of these examples we can see that there was no question of mutation or transmutation at all, but that the occurrence was due either to mistake or to cross-fertilisation. Sharrock, to whom Ray refers, was inclined to discredit stories of transmutation, but he has also this passage (History of the Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature, Oxford, 1660, p. 29):
"It is indeed grown to be a great question, whether the transmutation of a species be possible either in the vegetable, Animal, or Minerall Kingdome. For the possibility of it in the vegetable; I have heard Mr. Bobart and his Son often report it, and proffer to make oath that the Crocus and Gladiolus, as likewise the Leucoium, and Hyacinths by a long standing without replanting have in his garden changed from one kind to the other: and for satisfaction about the curiosity in the presence of Mr. Boyle I tooke up some bulbs of the very numericall roots whereof the relation was made, though the alteration was perfected before, where we saw the diverse bulbs growing as it were on the same stoole, close together, but no bulb half of the one kind, and the other half of the other: But the changetime being past it was reason we should believe the report of good artists in matters of their own faculty."