202 Mr. Knight’s Experiments on 
tained plants, from the same berry, so dissimilar, that I had 
good reason to believe them the produce of superfoetation. By 
taking off the cups, and destroying the immature male parts, 
(as in the pea,) I perfectly succeeded in combining the characters 
of different varieties of this fruit, as far as the changes of form, 
and autumnal tints, in the leaves of the offspring, will allow me 
to judge. 
Many experiments, of the same kind, were tried on other 
plants ; but it is sufficient to say, that all tended to evince, that 
improved varieties of every fruit and esculent plant may be 
obtained by this process, and that nature intended that a sexual 
intercourse should take place between neighbouring plants of 
the same species. The probability of this will, I think, be ap- 
parent, when we take a view of the variety of methods whicli 
nature has taken to disperse the farina, even of those plants in 
which it has placed the male and female parts within the same 
empalement. It is often scattered by an elastic exertion of 
the filaments which support it, on the first opening of the 
blossom ; and its excessive lightness renders it capable of being 
carried to a great distance by the wind. Its position within 
the blossom, is generally well adapted to place it on the bodies 
of insects ; and the villous coat of the numerous family of bees, 
is not less well calculated to carry it. I have frequently ob- 
served, with great pleasure, the dispersion of the farina of some 
of the grasses, when the sun had just risen in a dewy morning. 
It seemed to be impelled from the plant with considerable 
force ; and, being blue, was easily visible, and very strongly 
resembled, in appearance, the explosion of a grain of gun- 
powder. An examination of the structure of the blossoms of 
many plants, will immediately point out, that nature has some- 
