"A. B.," Leesburg, Florida, says: "While you are discussing fertilization in your magazine, could you enlighten me on the following point? Mr. Darwin, I think, wrote in one of his books that from a fertilizing point of view a cutting or graft from a plant was the same individual as the parent. Now what I want to know is whether the same individuality remains by propagation ad infinitum and whether on that account one would get better crops by planting different varieties in alternate rows?"

[Mr. Darwin does say in regard to cross-fertilization of flowers, that when bees go from flower to flower on the same plant, that is not to be regarded as cross-fertilization; and further he says that plants propagated from cuttings, grafts, suckers, or in any way but by seeds, are individuals of the same origin, and pollen from one plant to another under these circumstances is not cross-fertilization.

Now in a general sense, this proposition of Mr.

Darwin seems correct. If two plants are in every respect the same, why they are the same, and no cross-fertilizing can add anything more than exists. But we know now, much better indeed than Mr. Darwin did, that new varieties can come into existence otherwise than by seed. This is called bud-variation. If, therefore, a branch produces a new variety, that is, characters that did not exist before, there is no more reason why pollen from this new variety and the original should not be regarded as cross-fertilization, although the plant was raised from a cutting, than if raised from seed. If there is any immediate effect from cross-fertilization, there should be, as our correspondent suggests, a better crop when the flowers have pollen from an abundant bearer. - Ed. G. M].