ones in Pot 8, after being measured were cut down, and the eighteen crossed plants weighed 10 ounces, whilst the same number of self-fertilised plants weighed 10 1/4 ounces, or as 100 to 102.5; but if the dwarfed plants in Pot 7 had been excluded, the self-fertilised would have exceeded the crossed in weight in a higher ratio.  In all the previous experiments in which seedlings were raised from a cross between distinct plants, and were put into competition with self-fertilised plants, the former generally flowered first; but in the present case, in seven out of the eight pots a self-fertilised plant flowered before a crossed one on the opposite side.  Considering all the evidence with respect to the plants in Table3/ 22, a cross between two flowers on the same plant seems to give no advantage to the offspring thus produced, the self-fertilised plants being in weight superior.  But this conclusion cannot be absolutely trusted, owing to the measurements given in Table 3/21, though these latter, from the cause already assigned, are very much less trustworthy than the present ones.]

Summary of observations on Mimulus luteus.

In the three first generations of crossed and self-fertilised plants, the tallest plants alone on each side of the several pots were measured; and the average height of the ten crossed to that of the ten self-fertilised plants was as 100 to 64.  The crossed were also much more fertile than the self-fertilised, and so much more vigorous that they exceeded them in height, even when sown on the opposite side of the same pot after an interval of four days.  The same superiority was likewise shown in a remarkable manner when both kinds of seeds were sown on the opposite sides of a pot with very poor earth full of the roots of another plant.  In one instance crossed and self-fertilised seedlings, grown in rich soil and not put into competition with each other, attained to an equal height.  When we come to the fourth generation the two tallest crossed plants taken together exceeded by only a little the two tallest self-fertilised plants, and one of the latter beat its crossed opponent,—­a circumstance which had not occurred in the previous generations.  This victorious self-fertilised plant consisted of a new white-flowered variety, which grew taller than the old yellowish varieties.  From the first it seemed to be rather more fertile, when self-fertilised, than the old varieties, and in the succeeding self-fertilised generations became more and more self-fertile.  In the sixth generation the self-fertilised plants of this variety compared with the crossed plants produced capsules in the proportion of 147 to 100, both lots being allowed to fertilise themselves spontaneously.  In the seventh generation twenty flowers on one of these plants artificially self-fertilised yielded no less than nineteen very fine capsules!