Summary

CD has saved an enormous amount of labour since he replaced the chain on his deep well with wire rope. He now asks readers whether they have had experience of saving on the weight of the bucket by using some material other than oak.

Summary

Describes his experiments with kidney beans to test the agency of bees in their fertilisation. His results suggest they are essential.

Asks what George Swayne could mean by the advantage of artificial fertilisation of early beans [Trans. Hortic. Soc. Lond. 5 (1824): 208–13].

Has observed that hive-bees, which normally suck nectar from the flower of the kidney bean, will use holes cut through the calyx by humble-bees, though the holes cannot be seen from the mouth of the flower. Suggests hive-bees see humble-bees at work and understand what they are doing and "rationally" take advantage of the shorter path to the nectar. [See also 2359.]

Summary

Asks writer of an article on weeds why he supposes "there is too much reason to believe that foreign seed of an indigenous species is often more prolific than that grown at home?" The point is of interest to CD "in regard to the great battle of life which is perpetually going on all around us". Cites analogous observations by Asa Gray and J. D. Hooker. Does writer know "of any other analogous cases of a weed introduced from another land beating out … a weed previously common in any particular field or farm?"

Summary

Reports the decreased yield of pods resulting from excluding bees from the flowers of the kidney bean. Gives other observations suggesting the importance of bees in the fertilisation of papilionaceous flowers.

Cites cases of crosses between varieties of bean grown close together and requests observations from readers on the subject. States his belief "that is a law of nature that every organic being should occasionally be crossed with a different individual of the same species".

Summary

Hopes readers will send information on the permanence of cross-bred plants and animals. No one doubts that cross-bred productions tend to revert in various degrees to either parent for many generations. But are there not cases of crossed breeds of sheep and pigs that breed true? CD believes occasional cross-breeding of varieties is advantageous in nature as well as under domestication. [See reply to this letter by J. O. Westwood, Gard. Chron. (1860): 122.]

Summary

CD acknowledges that Patrick Matthew, in his appendix to Naval timber and arboriculture (1831), anticipated by many years CD’s explanation of the origin of species by natural selection. CD was ignorant of the work. If another edition of Origin is called for, CD will insert a notice to the foregoing effect.

Summary

Wants to hear from readers about the way in which the bee-orchid (Ophrys apifera) is fertilised. He has always found it to be self-fertilised but greatly doubts that the flowers of any plant are fertilised for generations by their own pollen. The bee-orchid has sticky glands, which would make it adapted for fertilisation by insects; this makes him want to hear what happens to its pollen-masses in places he has not observed.

Summary

Asks for any published reference providing account of the movement of the viscid hairs or leaves of Drosera lunata, an Indian Drosera which Lindley cites in Vegetable kingdom, p. 433.

Summary

Describes how adhesive bladders enable the achenia of Pumilio argyrolepsis to attach themselves to the soil. James Drummond sent seeds to CD with a memorandum on the achenia.

Summary

Discusses the possible explanation of why fly-orchid plants in a correspondent’s garden had no pollen-masses removed while Orchis maculata had all of its pollen-masses removed. CD points out that different orchids are fertilised by different insects. The insects needed to fertilise the fly-orchid may not have inhabited the site of the correspondent’s garden.

Summary

Reports his experiment with fertilising the large periwinkle (Vinca major), which he had never known to produce seed. He found that the pollen could not reach the stigma without the aid of insects, which in England never visit the flower. CD produced seeds by inserting a fine bristle, like the proboscis of a moth. Asks readers to repeat this experiment with other species that do not habitually seed and to report the result.

Summary

Requests orchid specimens from Arethuseae division for his investigation of the many contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insect agency.

Asks whether Charles Morren has published on the fertilisation of orchids by insect agency.

Summary

Two correspondents report fertilising Vinca rosea by imitating the action of an insect inserting its proboscis. Another says his Vinca rosea seed profusely without artificial fertilisation. CD asks what might explain the difference in results. In the latter instance, are the plants kept in a greenhouse with windows left open, so that moths could get access at night?

Summary

Asks whether T. A. Knight’s tall blue and white marrow peas were raised by Knight himself.

Also asks whether anyone who has saved seed peas grown close to other kinds observed that the succeeding crop came up "untrue" or crossed? CD would expect that such crossing would occasionally happen.

Summary

Asks M. J. Berkeley to identify the microscopical spherical bodies CD found in drops of yellowish rain-water that fell on his garden in a brief shower.

Summary

Reports on the appearance, in a gravel walk near his house, of an orchid, Epipactis latifolia, never seen in his neighbourhood before. Asks whether a seed could have been blown from a distance and germinated during a season when the walk was neglected.

Summary

[Roland] Trimen of the Cape of Good Hope sends evidence that a moth [Achaea chamaeleon] is capable of perforating the skin of a peach with its delicate proboscis. Have any readers observed moths or butterflies sucking any fruit of which the skin was not previously broken?

Summary

On the cruelty of setting steel traps to catch vermin. Requests suggestions for putting an end to the practice. [This item is mentioned in Correspondence 11: 781 n.6. (Appendix IX)]

Summary

Asks anyone who possesses a treatise on gardening, or an almanac, one or two centuries old, to look up what date is given as the proper period for sowing scarlet runners or dwarf French beans. CD wants to ascertain whether these plants can now be sown earlier than was formerly the case.

Summary

Asks botanical readers to inform him "whether in those monoecious or dioecious plants, in which the flowers are widely different, it has ever been observed that half the flower, or only a segment of it, has been of one sex and the other half or segment of the opposite sex, in the same manner as so frequently occurs with insects?"