My dear Sir

I heartily congratulate you on your gigantic labours of comparison being for the present finished and at the apparent great success of your later trials.² Would it not lighten your labours to throw away all the earliest and less sound varieties? I admire your energy greatly. Energy carries everything before it. That was a very good plan of yours selecting the heaviest and largest seeds, of which I did not think, yet since the publication of my Cross-Fertilization I have received additional evidence of the advantage from selecting large seeds.³ I shall read your abstract with pleasure. I should be unwilling to give you the trouble to copy all the details but besides this I have little strength and am much overworked by my present investigations and endless letters. But pray do not think that I am not interested in your results. Would it not be well to get your abstract published in some good Agricultural or Horticultural Journal?⁴ When I receive your abstract I will send it to Messrs Farrer & Caird.⁵ I am sorry that business is still bad.⁶

With all good wishes | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin.