Summary

Encloses a letter from a Mr Hill on some [unspecified] legal matter.

Summary

Describes grafting experiment of Baron de Villa Franca, which produced new varieties of sugar-cane. Encloses related documents.

Summary

In answer to CD’s query, FM thinks the seeds he sent were those of the sensitive Mimosa.

Reports his observations of movement of leaves of Bauhinia grandiflora and B. brasiliensis. They do not "sleep" in hot weather.

Sends some seeds of Pontederia he had fertilised.

Summary

Thanks GA for his article ["The daisy’s pedigree", Cornhill Mag. 44 (1881): 168–81].

The evolutionary argument that petals are transformed stamens is "striking and apparently valid". Doubts petals are naturally yellow.

Wallace’s "generalization about much modified parts being splendidly coloured" is also dubious except as both are caused by sexual selection.

Summary

Thanks CD for letter for Villa Franca. Would be happy if CD published the Baron’s observations in an English scientific journal.

Summary

Thanks VOK for a photograph and his New Year wishes.

Summary

Asks GJR’s opinion about grafting experiments on sugar-cane carried out by the Baron [de Villa Franca].

Summary

Reports the inconclusive results of some experiments he has been doing for CD [related to plant colouring material?].

Summary

On F. M. Balfour.

Effects of ammonium carbonate on roots.

FM’s Pontederia case is very curious.

Summary

Has sold London & South Western Railway stock and has purchased Great Western stock.

Summary

Accepts GJR’s offer to prepare sugar-cane paper for publication [Villa Franca and Glass, "New varieties of sugar-cane", Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1880–2): 30–1]. Suggests introduction and outline.

Agrees with GJR on microscope for Grant Allen.

Summary

Is obliged for TE’s paper on the wall lizard and another paper.

Summary

Sends subscription for Hannah Fitch.

Summary

Has read Earthworms; discusses parts and encloses a list of errata. Writes of worm-castings, describing his observations; speculates on the variation in their distribution under different conditions.

Summary

Thanks CD for financial assistance for Mr Fitch and his wife.

Summary

Advises his children as to how some money will be distributed among them.

Summary

Praises G. H. Darwin’s letter ["On the geological importance of the tides", Nature 25 (1882): 213–14] which criticises the use made of George Darwin’s views by Robert Ball ["A glimpse through the corridors of time", Nature 25 (1881): 79–82, 103–7]. JWJ argues from the fineness of Cambrian sediments against Ball’s intensification of geological forces. Massive Carboniferous river deltas also contradict Ball’s excessively high tides.

Summary

Thanks CD for Earthworms.

Discusses the problem of accounting for difference between nitrogen in permanent grassland and ordinary arable soil. Finds castings of earthworms rich in nitrogen. Asks CD if his observations enable him to explain the source. If from below top-soil, it would be a considerable manuring.

Summary

Sends his paper on the comparative anatomy of the assimilatory tissue systems of plants [Jahrb. Wiss. Bot. 13 (1882): 74–188]. This work has made clear to him how CD’s principles produce rich results when applied to plant anatomy.

Also sends a paper on the difficult problem of the gulf between cryptogamic and phanerogamic plants in the evolutionary development, in order to present another proof of the continuity of the phylogenetic development of the plant kingdom.

Summary

Thinks that "women though generally superior to men [in] moral qualities are inferior intellectually". Believes that men and women may have been aboriginally equal in this respect but that to regain equality women would have to "become as regular ""bread-winners"" as are men". Suspects the education of children and "the happiness of our homes" would greatly suffer in that case.