ments in Gardening' (1717), I. p. 20). He planted twelve tulips by themselves in a secluded part of his garden, and as
soon as they began to flower removed the anthers ; the result
was, that not one of them produced seeds, while four hundred
tulips in another part of the same garden produced seeds in abundance.
Twenty years pass by before another experiment is made James Logan[1] Governor of Pennsylvania, an Irishman by birth, set some plants of maize in each corner of a plot of ground, which was forty feet broad, and about eighty long, and experimented on them in various ways. In October he noted the following results : the cobs of the plants, from which he had removed the male panicles when the stigmas were already dependent, presented a good appearance; but closer examination showed that they were unfertilised, with the exception of one which was turned in the direction from which the wind might have conveyed pollen from other plants. On the cobs, from which he had removed some of the stigmas, he found exactly as many grains as he had left stigmas. One cob, which had been wrapped in muslin before the appearance of the stigmas, produced only empty husks.
Miller's experiments in 1751, which Koelreuter has extracted from the 'Gardener's Dictionary,' part II[2], are specially interesting, because the aid of insects in pollination was then observed for the first time. Miller planted twelve tulips, six or seven ells apart, and carefully removed the stamens as soon
as the flowers began to open; he imagined that he should thus entirely prevent fertilisation; some days after he saw some bees
- ↑ The account in the text is taken from Koelreuter's report in his 'Historic der Versuche über das Geschlechte der Pflanzen,' as given at p. 188 of Mikan's 'Opuscula Botanici Argument!.' Logan's work, 'Experimenta et Meletamata de Plantarum Generatione,' unknown to me, is said by Pritzel to have been published at the Hague in 1739. Koelreuter cites from a London edition of 1747.
- ↑ Koelreuter's report in Mikan's collection is again the authority which is here relied on.
