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of accounting for this part of the oeconomy of Na- 
ture, which I not only think a more probable one, 
but which, if all the circumftances to be explained 
are duly attended to, will, perhaps, be thought to 
amount to more than a conjedture. I would fuppofe 
that not only in the Dioecious plants, but in the 
Monoecious and Polygamious alfo, and, to fpeak 
more generally, in all cafes where the male and fe- 
male organs are found feparate, the defedt is not 
in the flower, which I fuppofe to be originally in- 
ftrudted with the rudiments of the organs of both 
fexes, but that it arifes from fome circumftance in the 
plant that deterniines it to blow the one organ and not 
the other. 
That the abfence of the rudiments is not to be 
inferred from the want of their expanfion appears 
plainly from the following circumftances that fall 
under every one’s obfervation, viz. 
That plants do not produce their flowers all the 
year, but only at particular feafons. , 
That many plants are fome years before they pro- 
duce their flowers, and hardly any, except annuals, 
blow the firlt year after they are fown.- 
That foil, climate, pruning, and many other cir- 
cumftances, will bring plants to blow fooner or later 
than they would otherwife do. 
That culture will encreafe the quantity of bloom, 
and thereby occafion the expanfion of flowers, which 
would otherwife have remained within the wood. 
Now if thefe circumftances, which are fimilar to 
thofe of which the explanation is fought, be fo com- 
mon, I afk why we may not in like manner fuppofe, 
“ that, whenever either the male or female organs 
L 1 2 “ arc 
