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the Fecundation of Vegetables. 
(as I have found in other plants) being furnished entirely by 
the female. In the succeeding spring, the difference, however, 
became extremely obvious ; for the plants from them rose with 
excessive luxuriance, and the colour of their leaves and stems 
clearly indicated, that they had all exchanged their whiteness 
for the colour of the male parent : the seeds produced in au- 
tumn were dark gray. By introducing the farina of another 
white variety, (or, in some instances, by simple culture,) I found 
this colour was easily discharged, and a numerous variety of 
new kinds produced, many of which were, in size, and in every 
other respect, much superior to the original white kind, and 
grew with excessive luxuriance, some of them attaining the 
height of more than twelve feet. I had frequent occasion to 
observe, in this plant, a stronger tendency to produce purple 
blossoms ; and coloured seeds, than white ones ; for, when I 
introduced the farina of a purple blossom into a white one, the 
whole of the seeds in the succeeding year became coloured; 
but, when I endeavoured to discharge this colour, by reversing 
the process, a part only of them afforded plants with white 
blossoms ; this part sometimes occupying one end of the pod, 
and being at other times irregularly intermixed with those 
which, when sown, retained their colour. It may perhaps be 
supposed, that something might depend on the quantity of farina 
employed ; but I never could discover, in this, or in any other 
experiment,, in which superfoetation did not take place, that 
the largest or smallest quantity of farina afforded any difference 
in the effect produced. 
The dissimilarity I observed in the offspring afforded by dif- 
ferent kinds of farina, in these experiments, pointed out to me 
an easy method of ascertaining whether superfoetation (the 
MDCCXCIX. D d 
