Some flowers of the Mimulus luteus were fertilised with their own pollen, and
others were crossed with pollen from distinct plants growing in the same pot.
The seeds were thickly sown on opposite sides of a pot. The seedlings were at
first equal in height; but when the young crossed plants were half an inch,
the self-fertilised plants were only a quarter of an inch high. But this
degree of inequality did not last, for, when the crossed plants were four and
a half inches high, the self-fertilised were three inches, and they retained
the same relative difference till their growth was complete. The crossed
plants looked far more vigorous than the uncrossed, and flowered before them;
they produced also a far greater number of capsules. As in the former case,
the experiment was repeated during several succeeding generations. Had I not
watched these plants of Mimulus and Ipomoea during their whole growth, I could
not have believed it possible, that a difference apparently so slight as that
of the pollen being taken from the same flower, or from a distinct plant
growing in the same pot, could have made so wonderful a difference in the
growth and vigour of the plants thus produced. This, under a physiological
point of view, is a most remarkable phenomenon.
With respect to the benefit derived from crossing distinct varieties, plenty
of evidence has been published. Sageret (17/49. 'Memoire sur les
Cucurbitacees' pages 36, 28, 30.) repeatedly speaks in strong terms of the
vigour of melons raised by crossing different varieties, and adds that they
are more easily fertilised than common melons, and produce numerous good seed.
Here follows the evidence of an English gardener (17/50. Loudon's 'Gardener's
Mag.' volume 8 1832 page 52.): "I have this summer met with better success in
my cultivation of melons, in an unprotected state, from the seeds of hybrids
(i.e. mongrels) obtained by cross impregnation, than with old varieties. The
offspring of three different hybridisations (one more especially, of which the
parents were the two most dissimilar varieties I could select) each yielded
more ample and finer produce than any one of between twenty and thirty
established varieties."
Andrew Knight (17/51. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 1 page 25.) believed that
his seedlings from crossed varieties of the apple exhibited increased vigour
and luxuriance; and M. Chevreul (17/52. 'Annal. des Sc. Nat.' 3rd series, Bot.
tome 6 page 189.) alludes to the extreme vigour of some of the crossed fruit-
trees raised by Sageret.
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