When we do this we must cover over the plant with a piece of netting just before it blossoms, so the bees and butterflies cannot get ahead of us and fertilize the plant. Then we must put a bit of pollen from one flower on the stigma of the flower we want to experiment with.
We must always use the pollen from the same kind of a plant, however.
It would be of no use to put nasturtium pollen on a morning-glory stigma, for instance, for it could not affect the ovule in the least. The protoplasm knows in some way its own plant and will not fertilize any other.
This is a very good thing, otherwise we might have a funny mixture of all sorts of plants.
Many delicious fruits have been produced by fertilizing one plant with pollen from another.
New varieties of grapes and berries are constantly obtained in this way.
If you live on a farm or have a garden, you might try to develop some new kinds of berries or fruits. You might not succeed, but it would do no harm to try.
CHLOROPHYLL.
