SECT. IV. OBJECTIONS. 333 



after the natural expansion of the petals ; in which 

 case it is very well known that if the pistil is im- 

 pregnated even with the pollen of another flower 

 the seeds will still ripen. But Alston does not 

 even admit the fact that the stripping of a plant of 

 its stamens will render the seed abortive ; alleging 

 in support of his opinion Geoffrey's experiments on 

 Maze, in which it was found that some of the ears 

 ripened a few seeds, even when the stamens were 

 entirely cut off before the bursting of the anthers ; 

 together with a similar experiment of his own 

 upon a solitary Tulip, by which the ovary suffered 

 nothing, but increased and came to maturity quite 

 full of seeds. Now the defect of the argument is 

 that we are not told whether the seeds were put to 

 the proper test ; that is, whether they were sown and 

 found capable of germination. 



The next counter experiment was made upon 

 Dioeceous plants. Three plants of common Spinach, 

 which were removed before it could be told 

 whether they were to be fertile or barren to a dis- 

 tance of at least eighty yards from the bed in which 

 they were raised, and from which also they were 

 separated by several intervening hedges, proved in 

 the end to be all fertile, and ripened plenty of seeds 

 that germinated again when sown. A solitary plant 

 of Hemp also that sprang up in Dr. Alston's garden, 

 having no other plant of the species within a mile 

 of it to his knowledge, grew luxuriantly, and pro- 

 duced seeds that germinated also when sown. 



