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XXVII. On the Variation in the Colour of Peas, occasioned 

 by Cross Impregnation. In a Letter to the Secretary. By 

 Mr. John Goss. 



Read October 15, 1822. 



Sir, 



I^i v i n g retired in the country, and having a taste for gar- 

 dening, I have been for some years past endeavouring to raise 

 new varieties of vegetables. A gentleman in the neighbour- 

 hood, seeing some of the fruits of my labours, put into my 

 hands the Transactions of your Society : this was like the 

 rising sun after the dawn, and I was enabled to see, not only 

 how to do my work better, but that some things which oc- 

 cupied my attention had by others been already accom- 

 plished. 



I have raised some new varieties of Peas, and as one of 

 these appears to be at least a singular production, and finding 

 very little on this subject in your volumes, I am tempted to 

 give you a description of it, accompanied with a few obser- 

 vations. 



In the summer of 1820, I deprived some blossoms of the 

 Prolific blue of their stamina, and the next day applied the 

 pollen of a dwarf Pea, and of which impregnation I obtained 

 three pods of seeds.* In the following spring, when these 



* I have not been able to ascertain with certainty the names by Avhich the two 

 parent Peas are usually known by gardeners and seedsmen ; but I believe that 

 the Prolific Pea, which was the female parent of the new variety, is the Blue 

 Prussian, and the dwarf Pea which was its male parent, the Dwarf Spanish. 



