Seeds, germinating in such little moist depressions grow regularly and rapidly, while those on the dryer elevations may be retarded for hours and days, before fully unfurling their seed-leaves. After heavy rains these differences may be observed to increase continually, and in some instances I found that plants were produced only on the wet spots, while the dry places remained perfectly bare. From this the wet spots seem to be the most favorable, but on the other hand, seeds may come to germinate there too numerously and so closely that the young plants will be crowded together and find neither space nor light enough, for a free and perfect development. The advantage may change to disadvantage in this way unless the superfluous individuals are weeded out in due time. [383] From all these and other reasons some plants will be favored by the external conditions from the beginning, while others will be retarded, and the effects will gradually increase until at last they become sufficient to account for a considerable amount of individual variability. There is no doubt that the difference in the strength of the plant and in the size of the capsules, going from 5-10 grams for a single fruit, are for the most part due to these unavoidable circumstances. I have tried all conceivable means to find remedies for these difficulties, but only by sowing my seeds in pans in a glass-house have I been able to reach more constant and equal conditions. But unfortunately such a method requires the planting out of the young seedlings in the beginning of the summer, and this operation is not without danger for opium-poppies, and especially not without important influence on the monstrosity of the pistilloid variety. Consequently my sowings of this plant have nearly always been made in the beds. In order to show how great the influence of all these little things may become, we only have to make two sowings on neighboring beds and under conditions which have carefully been made as equal as possible. If we use for these controlling experiments seeds from one and the same capsule, it will soon become evident that [384] no exact similarity between the two lots may be expected. Such differences as may be seen in these cases are therefore never to be considered of value when comparing two lots of seeds of different origin, or under varying conditions. No amount of accuracy in the estimation of the results of a trial, or in the counting out of the several degrees of the anomaly, is adequate to overcome the inaccuracy resulting from these differences.