. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 87 
Fotices of DWooks. 
The Effects of Oross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, 
HaRLEs Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. London: John Murray. 
Ir has for some time been known, and had long previously been sus- 
pected, that great benefit is derived from the cross-fertilisation of 
lants. Indeed, to have a feeling approaching certainty on this sub- 
derived from crossing reaches, neither is there any record of experi- 
notion of the cumulative evils of continued interbreeding. In this re- 
markable volume, a result of the labours of eleven years, Mr. Darwin 
has brought together a vast array of facts bearing on the subject of 
fertilisation, flanked by observations and interpretations, which are 
handled with the masterly grasp, both of details and of generals, 
which is so peculiar a mark of all his work. 
s might be expected, no exception worth mention can be taken 
in’s method, which was as follows. Each plant experi- 
sometimes out of doors. The was well mixed, and the plants on 
both sides of the partitions were watered at the same time, and as 
equally as possible. Usually the height of each plant was carefully 
asured, ‘and often more than once; sometimes also, each was cut 
down close to the ground after the height-measuring, and an equal 
number of crossed and self-fertilised were weighed. In the cases of 
P iaelteere 
