My dear Sir

Since receipt of your last valued letter in the Spring,¹ I have had great sorrow and anxiety. My poor wife,² my only companion, I may say, for twenty seven years, had to have her left breast amputated and it is only now I am beginning to think there are fair grounds to hope that the awful disease may not return. Business is still becoming worse and I am by no means sure I shall not be ruined.

Nevertheless I have not neglected the experiments in crossing the potato. The varieties now ripe, I am engaged in raising, and in a short time propose to submit report. In the meantime I suspect the advantage to be obtained by crossing the plant and growing it from the seed will be found to be greater than would be the mere suppression of the disease, that is to say, I suspect that I have found varieties which are so prolific and so little diseased that, after rejecting the diseased tubers, a far larger yield remains behind than the old varieties give of sound and diseased tubers taken together. The Black 75 No 1 has not changed in character this year so I presume it must have been mixed.³

Most respectfully | my dear Sir | James Torbitt