378 Mr. Theodore Wood on 



67 seeds. The plants which resulted produced among 

 them 270 pods, of which no less than 127, or nearly 

 one-half, shrivelled away while quite small and imma- 

 ture. The yield per plant, therefore, barely exceeded 

 two pods, as against a normal average of six or seven. 



Of variety No. 3 (Longpod) 51 seeds were sown. Of 

 these three failed to germinate ; the remainder bore in 

 all 248 pods. Exactly fifty of these 248, however, failed 

 to develope, and thus the average yield of mature pods 

 was slightly more than four to each plant, the normal 

 average again being seven. 



Of variety No. 4 (Longpod) 45 seeds were sown. 

 The plants raised from these bore 204 mature and 

 55 immature pods, an approximate average of four 

 and a half to each. The normal average in this variety 

 is again seven. 



Of variety No. 5 ("Early Mazagan"), 44 seeds were 

 sown, none of which were perforated by more than two 

 weevils. The plants resulting from these seeds, all of 

 which germinated in due course, produced 359 pods, of 

 which only nineteen failed to arrive at maturity. The 

 average yield to each plant, therefore, was as nearly as 

 possible eight pods ; the normal number. 



Judging, therefore, by the criterion of the average 

 number of pods produced, this latter variety was the 

 only one which remained practically unaffected by the 

 damage caused to the seed ; being by far the most robust, 

 this fact is less striking than it at first sight appears. 

 Of the remainder, the two longpod varieties (Nos. 3 and 4), 

 which are tolerably hardy in constitution, were each 

 deprived of nearl}^ one-half their reproductive capabilities, 

 the " Leviathan " (No. 1) of almost exactly one-half, 

 and the " Seville Longpod " (No. 2), perhaps the most 

 delicate of all, of rather more than two-thirds. 



Another and a still more striking fact, however, has yet 

 to be recorded, namely, that with the exception of those 

 borne by the " Early Mazagan" plants, more than one- 

 fourth of the pods, although large and healthy in 

 appearance, proved uj^on examination to contain nothing 

 more than the withered germs of the beans which they 

 should have enclosed. In as many more, one or at the 

 most two, perfect beans were found, while in scarcely 

 fifty pods altogether were the contents fully developed 

 in both size and number. Several pods, again, were 



