104 HYBRIDISING AND CROSS-BREEDING 



tied near the developing ear, the plant's own ' tassel ' (anthers) 

 having been cut away some time previous. After sufficient 

 time had elapsed, this set of male flowers was removed, and a 

 panicle of male flowers from a white-grained variety was intro- 

 duced to the same bottle, in order to afford the pollen an 

 opportunity of operating on the same female flowers, and the 

 result was another ear (cob), which Mr Meehan exhibited, and 

 the corn in this head was variegated, the base of each grain 

 being of the yellow Flint Corn, while the upper half was of the 

 white variety. From this curious and valuable fact Mr Meehan 

 came to the conclusion not only that there was an immediate 

 action or influence on the seed and the whole fruit structure 

 by the application of strange pollen, but the still more import- 

 ant fact, hardly before more than suspected namely, that one 

 ovule could receive and be affected by the pollen of two dis- 

 tinct parents, and this, too, after some little time had elapsed 

 between the first and second impregnation." 



The known cases where the immediate action of foreign 

 pollen on the fruit has been noted are so concisely given in 

 Professor Dyer's translation of Maximowicz's paper cited above, 

 that I gladly avail myself of the following quotation, which 

 summarises the whole matter with references to the original 

 papers : 



" The few instances may be found collected in Gaertner* or 

 Darwin.t Thus Mauz asserts that he observed different kinds 

 of fruit on a Pear-tree, of which a number of blossoms had 

 been castrated, and, as he supposed, fertilised afterwards by 

 neighbouring trees. J 



" Pavis maintained that the fruit of Apples, Melons, and 

 Maize underwent alteration in form, colour, and special quali- 

 ties when they were planted near other kinds. || Bradley even 

 says that he had seen an Apple which was sweet on one side 

 and sour on the other, and one half of which became soft 



* Die Bastardzeugung, p. 73. 



*t* Animals and Plants under Domestication, i. 397. 



J See Gard. Chron., 1871, p. 1354. 



[Livingstone states (and the instance has not, I think, been quoted) 

 that in the case of Citrullus vulgaris, Schrad., which varies with sweet and 

 bitter fruit, "Melons in a garden may be made bitter by a few bitter 

 Kengwe in the vicinity. The bees convey the pollen from one to the 

 ot her" (Travels in S. Africa, p. 49). TR.] 



fi Dr Hogg mentioned at a meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 Dec. 15, 1868, a case where Pear Beurre Superfin and Doyenne Depais 

 were growing close together on a wall, and the last-named variety bore a 

 fruit exactly like the former, the inference being that the flower which pro- 

 duced it had been accidentally cross-fertilised with pollen from flowers of 

 Beurre Superfin. 



