To A. S. Wilson 5 March 1879
Down
March 5, 1879
My dear Sir
I have just returned home after an absence of a week, and your letter was not forwarded to me; I mention this to account for my apparent discourtesy in not having sooner thanked you.1 You have worked out the subject with admirable care and clearness, and your drawings are beautiful.2 I suspected that there was some error in the Russian belief, but I did not think of the explanation which you have almost proved to be the true one.3 It is an extremely interesting instance of a more fertile var. beating out a less fertile one, and in this case one much more valuable to man. With respect to publication I am at a loss to advise you, for I live a secluded life and do not see many periodicals or hear what is done at the various societies. It seems to me that your paper should be published in some agricultural journal; for it is not simply scientific and would therefore not be published by the Linnæan or Royal Societies.
Would the R. Agricultural Socty be a fitting place? Unfortunately I am not a member and could not myself present it. Unless you think of some better journal, there is the Agricult. Gazette; I have occasionally suggested articles for publication to the Editor (though personally unknown to me) which he has always accepted4
Permit me again to thank you for the thorough manner in which you have worked out this case; to kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing a new truth or fact.
Believe me, my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Wilson, Alexander Stephen. 1879. Experiments with kubanka and saxonica wheat: first year’s experiments and results. Gardeners’ Chronicle, 24 May 1879, pp. 652–4.
Summary
Discusses ASW’s discovery of error in Russian belief about wheat varieties. Suggests that he publish paper in Journal of Royal Agricultural Society. [Results actually published in Gard. Chron. n.s. 11 (1879): 622–4.]
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11917
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Alexander Stephen Wilson
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 148: 367
- Physical description
- C 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11917,” accessed on 1 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11917.xml