the Fecundation of Vegetables . 203 
thing more in view, than that its own proper males should 
fecundate each blossom ; for the means it employs are always 
those best calculated to answer the intended purpose. But the 
farina is often so placed, that it can never reach the summit of 
the pointal, unless by adventitious means ; and many trials have 
convinced me, that it has no action on any other part of it. In 
promoting this sexual intercourse between neighbouring plants 
of the same species, nature appears to me to have an important 
purpose in view; for, independent of its stimulative power, 
this intercourse certainly tends to confine within more narrow 
limits, those variations which accidental richness or poverty of 
soil usually produces. It may be objected, by those who admit 
the existence of vegetable mules, that, under this extensive 
intercourse, these must have been more numerous ; but my total 
want of success, in many endeavours, to produce a single mule 
plant, makes me much disposed to believe that hybrid plants 
have been mistaken for mules; and to doubt (with all the de- 
ference I feel for the opinions of Linnaeus and his illustrious 
followers) whether nature ever did, or ever will, permit the 
production of such a monster. The existence of numerous 
mules in the animal world, between kindred species, is allowed ; 
but nature has here guarded against their production, by im- 
pelling every animal to seek its proper mate ; and, amongst the 
feathered tribe, when, from perversion of appetite, sexual inter- 
course takes place between those of distinct genera,* it has, in 
some instances at least, rendered the death of the female the 
inevitable consequence. But, in the vegetable world, there is 
not any thing to direct the male to its proper female : its farina 
is carried, by winds and insects, to plants of every different 
* This is said to be the case with the drake and the hen. 
