FROM THE

PHYSIOLOGICAL AND HORTICULTURAL

PAPERS,

PUBLISHED IN THE

Transactions of the Royal and Horticultural Societies,

BY THE LATE

THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, ESQ.,

PRESIDENT OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, ETC. ETC.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

MDCCCXLI.

INTRODUCTION.

DURING the life of the late MR. ANDREW KNIGHT, he was repeatedly urged by many scientific Horticulturists to collect together and republish all that he had written on Vegetable Physiology and Horticulture; and since his lamented death this wish has again been repeated to his family, and having been seconded by the advice of some of his friends whose pursuits have well qualified them to judge of the probable utility of such a work, it has been determined to offer to the public a selection from the Papers which at various periods he communicated to the Royal and Horticultural Societies, in a form that will render their contents available to many persons by whom the Transactions of these Societies are not attainable.

Vegetable Physiology is a branch of science which till very lately has not been very extensively cultivated; hence the number of persons competent to judge of the value of Mr. Knight's researches is necessarily limited but the continual reference that is made to his papers in the works of M. De Candolle, Dutrochet, Du Petit-Thouars, Féburier, Keiser, and other foreign writers on similar subjects, by

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several of whom his experiments have been repeated and the results confirmed, shows that his labours are extensively known and appreciated on the continent of Europe.

Sir Humphrey Davy in his Lectures on the Chemistry of Agriculture, and Dr. Lindley in his Theory of Horticulture, together with many other writers among his countrymen and countrywomen, have by the adoption of his opinions afforded a gratifying proof of the estimation in which they hold both his theoretic views, and the practical results he deduced from them.

A taste for Horticulture has for some years been so universally cultivated, that all classes are familiar with Mr. Knight's name as a writer, and the extracts from his papers which are found in many of the periodical publications on Horticulture and Arboriculture of the present day, have caused the readers of these works to be in some degree conversant with the particular subjects on which he has treated; and though the value of the present work may be diminished by the task of editing it having unavoidably fallen to those who are ill qualified to do justice to the undertaking, they are still cheered by the hope that their imperfect attempt may, nevertheless, by making both Mr. Knight's character and his writings better known, be the means of demonstrating more fully to the world the constant and never-tiring exertions of his mind in the pursuit of knowledge, and its application to purposes of practical utility for the benefit of his fellow-creatures.