From George Paul 22 January 1877
The “Old” Nurseries, Cheshunt, Herts, | N. | Near the Cheshunt Station on the
Cambridge Line of Great Eastern Rail.
Jan 22 1877
Chas Darwin Esq | Hollies
Sir
When staying with Mr friend Mr Charles Fisher of Handsworth Sheffield—he recently told me he had completed a list from careful observation of those kinds of the many varieties of Hollies grown by the firm (Fisher Holmes & Co) which produced fertile flowers1 and he showed me some new seedling varieties of the large leaved green hollies which he believed had resulted from the judicious side by side planting of different varieties the distinctive characters of which he wished to produce united on one plant.
It appeared to me, more especially in some hybrids? of ovata & nobilis he had attained success.2
I venture to write you thinking the matter may interest you. and to suggest that Mr Fisher though perhaps? not caring to give the information to another nurseryman would give you for scientific work his list.
The varieties with which he has worked are amongst those recently described by Mr Thos Moore in the Gardeners Chronicle.3
May I mention that at our Hill Nursery in Epping forest the yellow berried hollies were berry laden whilst the red berried kinds were very without berries.4 Is it not possible the yellow berried kind is a later flowering kind & so escaped the spring frost.
I also notice that in two rows of specimen hollies—2 plants of a very erect quick growing kind which had overtopped the others, have both a few berries near the tops of the plants but none up to the same level where the other plants are berryless.
I am Sir | Yours obedly | George Paul
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Banister, Kate. 2012. Salads and ornamentals: a short history of the Lea Valley nursery industry. In Hertfordshire garden history vol. 2, edited by Deborah Spring. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
Moore, Thomas. 1874–6. The common holly and its varieties. Gardeners’ Chronicle n.s. 2 (1874): 432–3, 519–20, 687, 750–2, 812–13; 4 (1875): 687–8, 741; 5 (1876): 43–4, 365–6, 437, 624; 6 (1876): 232, 389, 616.
Summary
Suggests CD write to Mr Fisher, a nurseryman, on his experiments with crossing varieties of holly.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10810
- From
- George Paul
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Cheshunt
- Source of text
- DAR 174: 31
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10810,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10810.xml