Zum Schlusse verdienen noch eine besondere Erwähnung die von Kölreuter, Gärtner u. a. durchgeführten Versuche über die Umwandlung einer Art in eine andere durch künstliche Befruchtung.
Finally, the experiments that Kölreuter, Gärtner, and others have performed on the transformation of one species into another through artificial fertilisation also deserve special mention.
Kölreuter, Gärtner The manuscript originally had Köhlreuter, with the h deleted. On Gärtner and Kölreuter see p. 3, s. 4.
transformation = Umwandlung Gärtner dedicated a whole chapter to the “transformation” (Umwandelung) of one species into another, which contained frequent references to Kölreuter’s experiments, and which Mendel annotated copiously in the copy held by his monastery’s library; see Carl Friedrich Gärtner, Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (Stuttgart: Hering, 1849), Mendel Museum, Collection of the Augustinian Abbey, pp. 455–476. Mendel also marked a succinct description of these experiments with a vertical line in the library copy of Charles R. Darwin, Über die Entstehung der Arten im Thier- und Pflanzen-Reich durch natürliche Züchtung, oder, Erhaltung der vervollkommneten Rassen im Kampfe um’s Daseyn, 2nd ed., transl. by H. G. Bronn (Stuttgart: Schweizerbart, 1863), Mendel Museum, Collection of the Augustinian Abbey, p. 303. The sentence reads: Bastarde sowohl als Blendlinge können wieder in jede der zwei älterlichen Formen zurückgeführt werden, wenn man sie in aufeinander-folgenden Generationen wiederholt mit der einen ihrer Stamm-Formen kreutzt. This corresponds to the following statement in the third English edition: “Both hybrids and mongrels can be reduced to either pure parent-form, by repeated crosses in successive generations with either parent”; see Charles R. Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, 3rd ed. (London: John Murray, 1861), p. 297. Note that Darwin speaks of “reduction” of one species to the other, rather than “transformation” of one species into the other. Kölreuter’s and Gärtner’s experiments did indeed move within the narrow limits of two given species, and hence served both authors to argue against, rather then for, evolution; see Ernst Mayr, “Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter’s Contributions to Biology”, Osiris, 2nd Series 2 (1986), pp. 135–176. On Gärtner’s opposition to the transformation of species, see p. 46, s. 4.