In half the pots the first plant which flowered was a self-fertilised
one, and in the other half a crossed one. And now another remarkable
change was clearly perceived, namely, that the self-fertilised plants
had become more self-fertile than the crossed. The pots were all put
under a net to exclude insects, and the crossed plants produced
spontaneously only fifty-five capsules, whilst the self-fertilised
plants produced eighty-one capsules, or as 100 to 147. The seeds from
nine capsules of both lots were placed in separate watch-glasses for
comparison, and the self-fertilised appeared rather the more numerous.
Besides these spontaneously self-fertilised capsules, twenty flowers on
the crossed plants again crossed yielded sixteen capsules; twenty-five
flowers on the self-fertilised plants again self-fertilised yielded
seventeen capsules, and this is a larger proportional number of capsules
than was produced by the self-fertilised flowers on the self-fertilised
plants in the previous generations. The contents of ten capsules of both
these lots were compared in separate watch-glasses, and the seeds from
the self-fertilised appeared decidedly more numerous than those from the
crossed plants.
CROSSED AND SELF-FERTILISED PLANTS OF THE SEVENTH GENERATION.
Crossed and self-fertilised seeds from the crossed and self-fertilised
plants of the sixth generation were sown in the usual manner on opposite
sides of three pots, and the seedlings were well and equally thinned.
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