FERN GROWING 63 



of crossed varieties, such as no one else possessed, and with 

 them showed the varieties from the combination of which 

 they had been produced. Mr. Thomas Moore, of the Apothe- 

 caries' Gardens, Chelsea, gave his opinion that they were un- 

 doubtedly produced from the parents shown, that the life-blood 

 of both was apparent in above a hundred examples, but how 

 this was accomplished he could not say, though he did not 

 believe in any one being able to impregnate a Fern ; and this 

 well-known authority repeated his conviction twenty years 

 later, on returning a paper that the author had presented 

 to the Linnean Society, and added that a number of botanists 

 who were present had formed the same opinion of " not 

 proved." This paper, with the mature examples as illus- 

 trations, was returned to the author with an intimation that the 

 Linnean Society had refused to have it printed. The author 

 had submitted it, before sending, to experts in Fern-raising 

 from spores, and amongst those who examined its statements 

 was the late Mr. Abraham Clapham, of Scarborough (a 

 gentleman who had disbelieved in crossing Ferns, but who 

 had a short time previously acknowledged that his judgment 

 had been changed, and that he could see this had been 

 accomplished), the late Colonel Jones, and the late Mr. E. F. 

 Fox, who were then both repeating these experiments, and were 

 confident about obtaining the same conclusions, and the year 

 after the rejection of the paper by the Linnean Society they 

 had each succeeded in accomplishing the same result. Two 

 years later Sir Joseph Hooker wrote to the author that " the 

 crossing of Ferns was an acknowledged fact." 



The author had next to report on having succeeded in 

 producing multiple impregnations, and this again was stoutly 

 resisted on the grounds that one sperm alone crossed a germ, 

 and when once this was accomplished there was an end to 

 this part of the process. The author had suggested that if 

 only one sperm was requisite to cross a germ, why could not 



