Of course no one who knows you or who takes a _general_ view of
your results will say this, but I daresay it will be said. I am afraid
this book will not do much or anything to get rid of the one great
objection, that the physiological characteristic of species, the
infertility of hybrids, has not yet been produced. Have you ever tried
experiments with plants (if any can be found) which for several
centuries have been grown under very different conditions, as for
instance potatoes on the high Andes and in Ireland? If any approach to
sterility occurred in mongrels between these it would be a grand step.
The most curious point you have brought out seems to me the slight
superiority of self-fertilisation over fertilisation with another flower
of the same plant, and the most important result, that difference of
constitution is the essence of the benefit of cross-fertilisation. All
you now want is to find the neutral point where the benefit is at its
maximum, any greater difference being prejudicial.
Hoping you may yet demonstrate this, believe me yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R.
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