398 THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OP PLANTS. 



and vigor of the organism instead of enhancing them ; 

 because such growth violates the proportion. Thus, 

 you may cut away the leaves in a plant, and thereby 

 much increase the size of the seed, but the seed will 

 have its vitality lessened, instead of increased, by aug- 

 mentation in size, so occasioned. 



Fertilization of Orchids. 



In this connection, it may be well to notice Darwin's 

 work, on the Fertilization of Orchids, which was writ- 

 ten, with the design to prove the truth of his "general 

 law of nature," that evil results from close-interbreed- 

 ing, per se, and from self-fertilization, per se, and that a 

 cross with another individual or variety, is absolutely 

 necessary. 



This "law," Darwin, as we have shown, promul- 

 gated first, in his Origin of Species. Of course, his 

 "law" was demurred to, by every breeder and fancier, 

 horticulturist and agriculturist, who knew of the great 

 variation in the quantity of the effects of interbreeding, 

 and of fertilization; and, who had noted, that, fre- 

 quently, there resulted no evil whatever from such a 

 process. 



Darwin says, on page I, of the Fertilization of 

 Orchids : 



" Having been blamed for propounding this doctrine, 

 without giving ample facts, for which I had not in that 

 work (Origi?i of Species) sufficient space, I wished to 

 show that I have not spoken without having gone into 

 details. I have been led to publish this little treatise, 

 separately, as it has become inconveniently large to be 

 incorporated with the rest of the discussion on the 

 same subject." 



