BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 181 



The conclusion which Mr. Darwin liad helped us to reach is, that 

 intercrossing should be regarded as the aim in nature and on the 

 whole most beneticial, and self fertilization as a safe-guard against 

 the risks of crossing; that most hermaphrodite llowers have the ad- 

 vantage of both, the latter for immediate sureness, the former for 

 ultimate benefit. Upon the new view, self-fertilization is the aim 

 and the consummation, and cross-fertilization at best a succedaneum. 

 ]3ty it insects may rej)air the damage they have caused to blossoms 

 through endowing them with ''the fatal gift of beauty," and stimula- 

 ting their organs of secretion; and by it the winds may bring chance 

 relief to those which at length abandoned by their spoilers, have lost 

 this attractiveness and fallen to the degradation of unisexuality. For 

 these last, as has already been stated, are hypothetically regarded as 

 degraded from higher floral types. 



We are bound to glance at some of the considerations which arc 

 adduced in support of this thesis. They are multifarious and of un- 

 equal value. As has occurred in other cases, so here also, the weight- 

 iest objections to Mr. Darwin's view are those which he has himself 

 brought out, namely, the fact that, as tested experimentally under 

 cultivation, while some plants are much increased in vigor and fertil- 

 ity by artificial intercrossing, others are not sensibly benefited; and 

 that the benefit derived in marked cases is not cumulative, but 

 reaches its maximum in two or three generations. And even close 

 breeding under cultivation occasionally gives rise to very vigorous 

 and fully prolific self-fertile races. Then many plants are fully self- 

 fertile in nature, and it is not proved that any such have lost or are 

 in the way of losing either fertility or vigor through continued inter- 

 breeding. -But, before drawing from this the conclusion that cross- 

 fertilization is of little or riO account in nature, it should be remem- 

 bered "that bud-propagated races are in similar case. Races exist 

 which have been pro])agated only from buds for jiundreds of years, 

 with seemingly undiminished vigor, and there is no proof that any 

 one has succumbed under the j)rocess. But for all tliat we do not 

 doubt that sexual reproduction contributes something to the well 

 being of the species, besides facilitating its dispersion. Again, no 

 one questions the necessity of fertilization by pollen to the produc 

 tion of embryo in the seed; yet, even in this, the necessity is not so 

 imminent but that some embryos may originate without it. 



In short, the facts brought out by Darwin and others, and all the 

 considerations of the present essay, are best harmonized by the con- 

 ception which the former has consistently maintained, namely, that 



