350 THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 



merit, whilst the others remained reduced, his "great 

 law of nature" would be completely negatived. If, 

 however, the individuals of the species, were, compara- 

 tively, little disproportionately developed, his heart 

 would be rejoiced, to find that some evil did result 

 from. self-fertilization, and that, on the other hand, good 

 resulted from a cross between varieties of such species. 

 If again ; he chose a species that had many of its char- 

 acters reduced to a rudimentary condition; and had 

 one or two only of the remaining characters pushed to 

 an extreme of development, the results of his experi- 

 ments, would be, in his eyes, so signal and conclusive, 

 as to cause him regret that he had suffered himself to 

 be ruffled, for a moment, by mere quibblers who had 

 not taste enough to recognize the implicit deference 

 they owed to genius so transcendant. 



The following quotation, in which Darwin gives as- 

 surance that he intends "forever (to) settle the ques- 

 tion," is rich. 



"Experiments have not been tried," says he (pp. 

 157-8, Vol. ii, Animals and Plants, &c), "on the 

 effects of fertilizing flowers with their own pollen, 

 during several generations. But, we shall presently* 

 see that certain plants, either normally or abnormally, 

 are more or less sterile, even in the first generation, 

 when fertilized by their own pollen. Although nothing 

 is known on the evil effects of long-continued close-in- 

 terbreeding, with plants, the converse proposition, that 

 great good 'is derived from crossing, is well established. 



"With respect to the crossing of individuals belong- 

 ing to the same sub-variety, Gartner, whose accuracy 

 and experience exceeded that of all other hybridizers, 

 states that he has many times observed good effects 



