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for improving the apple-trees which were of such paramount importance to farmers in that cider-drinking country. All around him in the orchards he saw the good old trees decaying while the younger ones, even when grafted on vigorous stocks, yielded disappointingly small crops. Gradually through close observation he became convinced that vegetable life also had its own fixed period of duration, a conclusion which ultimately led to his raising new trees from seed an entirely novel idea and what was still more revolutionary, to producing new varieties of fruit by hybridization. When he married and went to live at Elton, a small Queen Anne house at the foot of Bringewood Chase between Maryknowle and Downton, his little property afforded much greater scope for his experiments. He now had a farm, a hot-house and a walled garden where much of his most important work was carried out. The orchard adjoining it is still called 'Knight's orchard' and two or three ancient cherry-trees still stand there which he raised from seed sometime around 1806. At the beginning of 1791, the year of his marriage and removal to Elton, his brother, always eager to help him, effected an introduction which marked a turning point in his scientific career. A year earlier Payne had induced him to see more of the world by accompanying him and Charles Towneley, whose rakish propensities were famous, on a visit to Paris. This trip, which was cut short by the first rumblings of the Revolution, entirely failed to give Andrew Knight a taste for foreign travel he never left England again. But early in the New Year of 1791 a far more congenial plan was being mooted. The Board of Agriculture was carrying out investigations on the state of agriculture in different parts of England and Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, consulted Payne Knight as to who could best inform them about farming in Herefordshire. He at once warmly recommended his brother whose practical knowledge of agriculture and natural history combined to make him by far the best authority. The introduction must have taken place early in the spring when Andrew was spending his usual month in London, as in April he appeared for the first time before the public, reading a paper to the Royal Society on The Grafting of Fruit Trees. Hitherto he had stood alone, jealously guarding his independence; now, quite suddenly, under the impact of Sir Joseph's powerful mind and sympathetic understanding, he capitulated. Thenceforth and in full measure he would receive all the support and encouragement which until then he had neither known nor coveted. The correspondence between them begun this summer, continued until Banks's death twenty years later. Banks it was who persuaded him to keep abreast with what went on by reading the works of his contemporaries and it was at Banks's house in Soho Square that he met many of the scientific and literary