SECT. IV. 



OBJECTIONS. 341 



requires no reply, and proves only that the objector 

 was much in want of argument. It is said to be 

 ridiculous to suppose that the pollen should be 

 wafted by the winds, or carried by insects to im- 

 pregnate the germe ; but if it can be proved that the 

 pollen retains its fecundating property for some con- 

 siderable length of time after it is shed, which Lin- 

 naeus has actually done, there is no absurdity in 

 supposing that it may in some cases be conveyed to 

 the pistil by the wind. The wind must necessarily 

 waft it along, and it may certainly fall upon the 

 stigma of the female plant : and, if insects should 

 occasionally be the carriers of it, still it is far less 

 wonderful than the feats of Spallanzani, in a case 

 which I need not specify. 



Varieties which have been proved to proceed, at 

 least occasionally, from the intermixture of the pol- 

 len of plants of different species or varieties, Mr. 

 Smellie ascribes wholly to soil and culture ; dismiss- 

 ing the experiments on the subject by saying that 

 the same results might have happened if the con- 

 ditions had been reversed, and finally contending 

 that the doctrine of the sexes is disproved by the 

 fact of the propagation of plants from slips and layers 

 in which new individuals are formed without the 

 intervention of sexual organs. But if this is at all 

 an argument, it is one from which the sexualist has 

 but little to fear; as in the case of slips and layers 

 there is in fact no production of a new individual, 

 but merely a prolongation of the old ; or at best a 



