CROSSED AND SELF-FERTILISED PLANTS OF THE SECOND GENERATION.
The crossed and self-fertilised seeds from the crossed and
self-fertilised plants of the last generation were sown on opposite
sides of two pots; but the seedlings were not thinned enough, so that
both lots grew very irregularly, and most of the self-fertilised plants
after a time died from being smothered. My measurements were, therefore,
very incomplete. From the first the crossed seedlings appeared the
finest, and when they were on an average, by estimation, 5 inches high,
the self-fertilised plants were only 4 inches. In both pots the crossed
plants flowered first. The two tallest flower-stems on the crossed
plants in the two pots were 17 and 16 1/2 inches in height; and the two
tallest flower-stems on the self-fertilised plants 10 1/2 and 9 inches;
so that their heights were as 100 to 58. But this ratio, deduced from
only two pairs, obviously is not in the least trustworthy, and would not
have been given had it not been otherwise supported. I state in my notes
that the crossed plants were very much more luxuriant than their
opponents, and seemed to be twice as bulky. This latter estimate may be
believed from the ascertained weights of the two lots in the next
generation. Some flowers on these crossed plants were again crossed with
pollen from another plant of the same lot, and some flowers on the
self-fertilised plants again self-fertilised; and from the seeds thus
obtained the plants of the next generation were raised.
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