Eighth generation Table 2/9 :  8 :  113.25 :  8 :  96.65 :  85.

Ninth generation Table 2/10 :  14 :  81.39 :  14 :  64.07 :  79.

Tenth generation Table 2/11 :  5 :  93.70 :  5 :  50.40 :  54.

All ten generations together :  73 :  85.84 :  73 :  66.02 :  77.

(Diagram 2/1.  Diagram showing the mean heights of the crossed and self-fertilised plants of Ipomoea purpurea in the ten generations; the mean height of the crossed plants being taken as 100.  On the right hand, the mean heights of the crossed and self-fertilised plants of all the generations taken together are shown (as eleven pairs of unequal vertical lines.))

The mean height of the self-fertilised plants in each of the ten generations is also shown in the diagram 2/1, that of the intercrossed plants being taken at 100, and on the right side we see the relative heights of the seventy-three intercrossed plants, and of the seventy-three self-fertilised plants.  The difference in height between the crossed and self-fertilised plants will perhaps be best appreciated by an illustration:  If all the men in a country were on an average 6 feet high, and there were some families which had been long and closely interbred, these would be almost dwarfs, their average height during ten generations being only 4 feet 8 1/4 inches.

It should be especially observed that the average difference between the crossed and self-fertilised plants is not due to a few of the former having grown to an extraordinary height, or to a few of the self-fertilised being extremely short, but to all the crossed plants having surpassed their self-fertilised opponents, with the few following exceptions.  The first occurred in the sixth generation, in which the plant named “Hero” appeared; two in the eighth generation, but the self-fertilised plants in this generation were in an anomalous condition, as they grew at first at an unusual rate and conquered for a time the opposed crossed plants; and two exceptions in the ninth generation, though one of these plants only equalled its crossed opponent.  Therefore, of the seventy-three crossed plants, sixty-eight grew to a greater height than the self-fertilised plants, to which they were opposed.

In the right-hand column of figures, the difference in height between the crossed and self-fertilised plants in the successive generations is seen to fluctuate much, as might indeed have been expected from the small number of plants measured in each generation being insufficient to give a fair average.  It should be remembered that the absolute height of the plants goes for nothing, as each pair was measured as soon as one of them had twined up to the summit of its rod.  The great difference in the tenth generation, namely, 100 to 54, no doubt was partly accidental, though, when these plants were weighed, the difference was even greater, namely, 100 to 44.  The smallest amount of difference occurred in the fourth and the eighth generations, and this was apparently due to both the crossed and self-fertilised plants having become unhealthy, which prevented the former attaining their usual degree of superiority.  This was an unfortunate circumstance, but my experiments were not thus vitiated, as both lots of plants were exposed to the same conditions, whether favourable or unfavourable.