To J. D. Hooker 14 [August 1855]1
Down.
14th
My dear Hooker
I have received enclosed this morning.2 I am very unwell & must write briefly, for I am & have been suffering from an immense Boil or almost abscess.—
I never cease begging favours. Will you lend me the copy, which I had before, of A. Gray’s Manual, (if, as I suppose, that was the last edition).3 Asa Gray sends me some references & I do not think it worth buying for that alone. I see by his letter it is all right about the marked sheets; they have not & will not be sent, for he sends me M.S. instead.—4
You could render me one very great service if you go to Erfurt in Prussia or know any Botanist there: I have had seeds of Stocks, Larkspur, China Aster, & Hollyock from there: & it is really marvellous how true they come to even slightest shades of colour. The best grower is Mss C. Platz & Son; the 2d best, Fred. Adolp. Haagr (?) Junr. & 3d best, Charles Appelius.5 Now if you could get any Botanist there to enquire for me (stating that it is scientific & not mercantile enquiry) whether they take much pains, (& what pains) to separate the plants whence they get the seeds of these sub-varieties? and secondly whether they find that the trueness of any new shade of colour increases in any marked degree after a few generations of selection, or whether they come true at first?— I know it is a bare chance whether you can help me, but if you can without much trouble I know you will.—
I have almost finished Flora Indica, & am astonished at labour bestowed on Berberis,6 Aquilegia7 &c &c. (it is like going over some of my own Barnacle work).8 I have picked out some very valuable facts for me9
Will you send A. Gray by Post & I will repay postage.
Goodbye my dear Hooker I am full of pain & hate almost everybody, except you & a very few. May your tour prosper adios.— I have had a good deal of grief at having missed Lindley’s:10 & I shd. very much have liked to have met Miss Henslow.11
Adios | C. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Gray, Asa. 1848. A manual of the botany of the northern United States, from New England to Wisconsin and south to Ohio and Pennsylvania inclusive. Boston and Cambridge: James Monroe and Company. London: John Chapman.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Summary
When JDH goes to Germany, will he ask seed men if their marvellous true breeding lines are the result of selection.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1741
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 114: 145
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1741,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1741.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5