Column 2: Crossed Plants.
Column 3: Self-fertilised Plants.
Pot 1 : 84 4/8 : 74 6/8. Pot 1 : 84 6/8 : 84. Pot 1 : 76 2/8 : 55 4/8.
Pot 2 : 84 4/8 : 65. Pot 2 : 90 : 51 2/8. Pot 2 : 82 2/8 : 80 4/8.
Pot 3 : 83 : 67 6/8. Pot 3 : 86 : 60 2/8.
Pot 4 : 84 2/8 : 75 2/8.
Total : 755.50 : 614.25.
Each of these nine crossed plants is higher than its opponent, though in one case only by three-quarters of an inch. Their average height is 83.94 inches, and that of the self-fertilised plants 68.25, or as 100 to 81. These plants, after growing to their full height, became very unhealthy and infested with aphides, just when the seeds were setting, so that many of the capsules failed, and nothing can be said on their relative fertility.
CROSSED AND SELF-FERTILISED PLANTS OF THE EIGHTH GENERATION.
As just stated, the plants of the last generation, from which the present ones were raised, were very unhealthy and their seeds of unusually small size; and this probably accounts for the two lots behaving differently to what they did in any of the previous or succeeding generations. Many of the self-fertilised seeds germinated before the crossed ones, and these were of course rejected. When the crossed seedlings in Table 2/9 had grown to a height of between 1 and 2 feet, they were all, or almost all, shorter than their self-fertilised opponents, but were not then measured. When they had acquired an average height of 32.28 inches, that of the self-fertilised plants was 40.68, or as 100 to 122. Moreover, every one of the self-fertilised plants, with a single exception, exceeded its crossed opponent. When, however, the crossed plants had grown to an average height of 77.56 inches, they just exceeded (namely, by .7 of an inch) the average height of the self-fertilised plants; but two of the latter were still taller than their crossed opponents. I was so much astonished at this whole case, that I tied string to the summits of the rods; the plants being thus allowed to continue climbing upwards. When their growth was complete they were untwined, stretched straight, and measured. The crossed plants had now almost regained their accustomed superiority, as may be seen in Table 2/9.