My dear Fox

The potato seeds were collected from ripe tubers in the Cordillera of central Chile, in a most unfrequented district, many miles from any inhabited spot, & where the plant was certainly in a state of nature— they were collected in the spring (ie autumn of the S. Hemisphere) of 1835 & shipped for England in May, & so probably were planted in the spring of 1836 by Prof. Henslow, from whom came the tuber which you had.—

I see since I wrote to you someone has urged the necessity of sending to S. America for new seed!²

I have sometime thought of calling the attention of the readers of the Gardeners Chronicle to the remarkable difference of climate of the Chonos islands & central Chile, in both of which places the Potato grows wild— if you think it worth while to allude to this, refer to the 1^st. Edit. of my Journal, if you have it.—³

Many thanks for your answer about the Potash.⁴ I shall certainly set up a bottle & quill—

Very many thanks for your most kind invitation to us all, & I assure you it would give us much real pleasure to accept it; but the journey is fearfully long, & my wretched stomach hates visiting out, as much as the rest of the inward man enjoys seeing his old friends—

I enclose list of songs for M^rs Fox, & I wish with all my heart, I c^d hear her singing them—⁵ pray give our kind remembrances to her & believe me | My dear Fox | Ever Yours | C. Darwin