100 Account of fome Experimejits on 



mentioned, perfeftly fimllar to it, I am ftrongly difpofed to 

 believe, that the feeds were here of common parentage; but 

 I do not conceive myfelf to be in pofleffion of fafts fufficient 

 to enable me to fpeak with dccifion on this queftion. 



If, however, the female afford the firft organifcd atom, 

 and the farina aft only as a ftimvilus, it appears to me by 

 no means impoffible, that the explofion of two veficles of 

 farina, at the fame moment, (taken from different plants,) 

 may afford feeds (as I have fuppofed) of common parentage ; 

 and, as I am unable to difcover any fourcc of inaccuracy in 

 this experiment, T mufl: believe this to have happened. 



Another fpecies of fupcrfostation (if I have juRly applied 

 that term to a procefs in which one feed appears to have been 

 the offspring of two males) has occurred to me fo often, as to 

 remove all poffibility of doubt as to its exiftence. In 1797? 

 that year after I had feen the refult of the laft-mentioned ex- 

 periment, having prepared a great many white bloffoms, I 

 introduced the farina of a vi-hite and that of a gray pea, 

 nearly at the fame moment, into each ; and as, in the laft 

 year, the charafter of the coloured male had prevailed, I 

 ufed its farina more fparingly than that of the white one; 

 and now almoft every pod afforded plants of different colours. 

 The majority, however, were white ; but the charafters of 

 the two kinds were not fufficiently diftin£l to allow me to 

 judge with precifion whether any of the feeds produced were 

 of common parentage or not. In the laft year I was more 

 fortunate : having prepared bloffoms of the little early frame 

 pea, I introduced its own farina, and immediately afterwards 

 that of a very large and late gray kind, and I fowcd the feeds 

 thus obtained in the end of the laft fummer. Many of them 

 retained the colour and charafter of the fmall early pea, not 

 in the flightcft degree altered, and bloflbmed before they were 

 eighteen inches high ; whilft others, (taken from the fame 

 podsj) whofe colour was changed, grew to the height of more 

 than four feet, and were killed by the froft, before any blof- 

 foms appeared. 



It is evident, that in thefe inftances fuperfcetatlon took 



place; and it is equally evident, that the feeds were not all 



of common parentage. Should fubfequcnt experience tvince 



8 that 



