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The Ameeican Beeedees Magazine THE AMEEICAN BEEEDEES MAGAZINE " ily people are destroyed through lack of knowledge."—HOSBA 4: fl. Vol. IV First Quarter, 1913 No. 1 THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, 1759-1838 The passing of sterling qualities, straight through four generations Downloaded from of a family is in itself a circumstance worthy of notice, but when this is coupled with the fact, that this transmission culminated in a man who plainly was a genius, this bit of genealogy assumes decided interest. The great-grandfather of Thomas Andrew Knight, Richard Knight, http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/ was according to the traditions of the family a wealthy man. The grandfather, also named Richard, was very wealthy as judged by financial standards of his day; he was an industrialist and iron merchant and was the founder of the family fortune. The father was a wealthy man's son, and so was Thomas Andrew Knight himself. Thomas Andrew Knight was the youngest of a childship of four, there being one brother and two sisters. It .seems that the early schooling of both^of these boys had been greatly neglected, but they at OCLC on March 18, 2015 had inherited fine minds which stood them in good stead. As a boy he learned rapidly; possessing an almost phonographic memory; the quotation of a single line of certain of the classics would elicit from him the recitation of pages upon pages. He was exceedingly fond of out-door life with its exercises, its sport and especially its unlimited opportunities for observation and research. This, coupled with his love for agriculture defined for him his field of work, then unexplored territory, and recognizing no boundaries, he gave free rein to his talents. The elder brother, Payne, despite his disadvantages in education, developed into a scholar, art critic, collector and writer, and was a member of Parliament for twenty-six years. Thomas Andrew Knight married Miss Frances Felton with whom he led a most affectionate married life. He settled at Elton, pur- chased a farm, equipped and stocked it and then threw himself into the study of horticulture and of biological problems, especially vege- table physiology. Downloaded from http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/ at OCLC on March 18, 2015 THOMAS AKDBEW KNIOBT THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT 3 Animal life also received his attention; he was especially fond of studying animal behavior and in his extensive farming operations he naturally entered upon the breeding of live stock. He owned and bred with much skill and judgment a herd of Herefordshires, success- fully showing at Smithfield and Hereford and earning many prizes. It is interesting in this connection to note that the researches he made into the cause of the superiority of the Hereford, led him to attribute this quality to the introduction of a breed of cattle from Flanders, by Lord Scudamore whose death took place 1621. A Merino ram pre- Downloaded from sented to him by George III was the foundation of a breed made by crossing with the Ryeland breed of sheep. This flock Knight bred for a number of years. He is also credited with having made an importation of Norway ponies, probably Fjord horses, intending to add some of the qualities to the stock of English work horses. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/ Although most of his scientific work was far in advance of his time, he combined this with an unusual degree of practical sense. He never lost himself in speculations. Utility and practical end results were ever kept in sight in all his numerous and varied investigations. He worked out much of what we know of the theory of horticulture. In 1797 he took active part in the organization of an agricultural society of Herefordshire. In 1802, a commissioner sent by the Czar of Russia to England, to procure for breeding purpose some pure blooded cattle and sheep for the imperial estates, delegated Mr. at OCLC on March 18, 2015 Knight to make the selections and purchases from the famous herds of England. Knight's contributions to plant breeding were important. He was, so far as history notes, the first person to cross pollenate the flower of the apple for the purpose of creating new varieties through new com- binations of characters. He placed in the hands of the English fruit growers many of their best varieties. From the application of his newly discovered method of combining desirable qualities by crossing of apples, it was a logical step to breeding vegetables and flowers. In the search for laws underlying the transmission of certam characters which he observed, it was not a mere coincidence that he, as did Mendel many years after, chose the common garden pea for experi- mentation. In a paper on the "Supposed Influence of the Pollen in Cross Breeding upon the Color of the Seed Coats of Plants and Qualities of Their Fruits," read before the Horticultural Society in 1823, a year after Mendel was born, he gives this reason for using the pea: 4 AMERICAN BREEDERS MAGAZINE The numerous varieties of strictly permanent habits of the pea, its annual life, and the distinct character in form, size, and color of many of its varieties, induced me, many years ago, to select it for the purpose of ascertaining, by a long course of experiments, the effects of introducing the pollen of one variety into the prepared blossoms of another. My chief object in these experiments was to obtain such information as would enable me to calculate the probable effects of similar operations upon other species of plants; and I believe it would not be easy to suggest an experiment of cross breeding upon this plant, of which I have not seen the result, through many successive generations I shall, therefore, proceed to give a concise account of some of these experi- ments, or rather to state the results of a few of them, believing that I shall be Downloaded from able to explain satisfactorily the cause of a colored variety of the pea having been apparently changed into a white variety by the immediate influence of the pollen in the experiment of Mr. Goss. Other papers he contributed were: "On the Comparative Influence of Male and Female Parents on Their Offspring;" "On the Hereditary http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/ Instinctive Propensities of Animals." Mr. Knight lived a rather retired life, being almost shy of people, except when he met with minds similar to his own and engaged in similar work. He had friends among the most noted scientific men in Europe and with them carried on a voluminous correspondence. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1805. at OCLC on March 18, 2015 A STUDY IN EUGENIC GENEALOGY.1 A. GARTLEY Honolulu, Hawaii Two other of the descendents of Elizabeth Tuttle, through her son Timothy, have been purposely omitted from the foregoing catalogue since they belong in a class by themselves, because they inherited also the defects of Elizabeth's character. These two were Pierpont Edwards, who is said to have been a tall, brilliant, acute jurist, eccentric and licentious; and Aaron Burr, Vice- President of the United States in whom flowed the good and evil of Elizabeth Tuttle's blood. Here tho lack of control of the sex impulse in the germ plasm of this wonderful woman haa reappeared with imagination and other talents in certain of her descendants. The remarkable qualities of Elizabeth Tuttle were in the germ plasm of her four daughters also: Abigail Stoughton; Elizabeth Deming; Ann Rich- ardson, and Mable Bigelow. All of these had distinguished descendants, of whom only a few can be mentioned here. Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence, descended from Abigail; the Fairbanks brothers, manufacturers of scales and hardware, and the Marchioness of Donigal, were •Continued from vol. Ill, no 4..
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