More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I [235]
plants.
With respect to cultivating plants, I mean to begin on very few, for I may find it too troublesome. I have already had for some months primroses and cowslips, strongly manured with guano, and with flowers picked off, and one cowslip made to grow in shade; and next spring I shall collect seed.
I think you have quite misunderstood me in regard to my object in getting you to mark in accompanying list with (x) all the "close species" (323/1. See Letter 279.) i.e., such as you do not think to be varieties, but which nevertheless are very closely allied; it has nothing whatever to do with their cultivation, but I cannot tell you [my] object, as it might unconsciously influence you in marking them. Will you draw your pencil right through all the names of those (few) species, of which you may know nothing. Afterwards, when done, I will tell you my object--not that it is worth telling, though I myself am very curious on the subject. I know and can perceive that the definition of "close species" is very vague, and therefore I should not care for the list being marked by any one, except by such as yourself.
Forgive this long letter. I thank you heartily for all your assistance.
My dear old Master, Yours affectionately, C. Darwin.
Perhaps 3 pence would be hardly enough, and if the number of kinds does not turn out very great it shall be 6 pence per packet.
LETTER 324. ASA GRAY TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(324/1. In reply to Darwin's letter, June 8th, 1855, given in "Life and Letters," II., page 61.)
Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S., June 30th, 1855.
Your long letter of the 8th inst. is full of interest to me, and I shall follow out your hints as far as I can. I rejoice in furnishing facts to others to work up in their bearing on general questions, and feel it the more my duty to do so inasmuch as from preoccupation of mind and time and want of experience I am unable to contribute direct original investigations of the sort to the advancement of science.
Your request at the close of your letter, which you have such needless hesitation in making, is just the sort of one which it is easy for me to reply to, as it lies directly in my way. It would probably pass out of my mind, however, at the time you propose, so I will attend to it at once, to fill up the intervals of time left me while attending to one or two pupils. So I take some unbound sheets of a copy of the "Manual," and mark off the "close species" by connecting them with a bracket.
Those thus connected, some of them, I should in revision unite under one, many more Dr. Hooker would unite, and for the rest it would not be extraordinary if, in any case, the discovery of intermediate forms compelled their union.
As I have noted on the blank page of the sheets I send you (through Sir William Hooker), I suppose that if we extended the area, say to that of our flora of North America, we should find that the proportion of "close species" to the whole flora increased considerably. But here I speak at a venture. Some day I will test it for a few families.
If you take for comparison with what I send you, the "British Flora," or Koch's "Flora Germanica," or Godron's "Flora of France," and mark the "close species" on the same principle, you will doubtless find a much greater number. Of course you will not infer from this that the two floras differ in this respect; since the difference is probably owing to the facts that (1) there have not been so many observers here bent upon detecting differences; and (2) our species, thanks mostly to Dr. Torrey and myself, have been more thoroughly castigated. What stands for one species in the "Manual" would figure in almost any European flora as two, three, or more, in a very considerable number of cases.
In boldly reducing nominal species J. Hooker is doing a good work; but his vocation--like that of any other reformer--exposes him to temptations and dangers.
Because you have shown that a and b are so connected by intermediate forms that we cannot do otherwise than regard them as variations
With respect to cultivating plants, I mean to begin on very few, for I may find it too troublesome. I have already had for some months primroses and cowslips, strongly manured with guano, and with flowers picked off, and one cowslip made to grow in shade; and next spring I shall collect seed.
I think you have quite misunderstood me in regard to my object in getting you to mark in accompanying list with (x) all the "close species" (323/1. See Letter 279.) i.e., such as you do not think to be varieties, but which nevertheless are very closely allied; it has nothing whatever to do with their cultivation, but I cannot tell you [my] object, as it might unconsciously influence you in marking them. Will you draw your pencil right through all the names of those (few) species, of which you may know nothing. Afterwards, when done, I will tell you my object--not that it is worth telling, though I myself am very curious on the subject. I know and can perceive that the definition of "close species" is very vague, and therefore I should not care for the list being marked by any one, except by such as yourself.
Forgive this long letter. I thank you heartily for all your assistance.
My dear old Master, Yours affectionately, C. Darwin.
Perhaps 3 pence would be hardly enough, and if the number of kinds does not turn out very great it shall be 6 pence per packet.
LETTER 324. ASA GRAY TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(324/1. In reply to Darwin's letter, June 8th, 1855, given in "Life and Letters," II., page 61.)
Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S., June 30th, 1855.
Your long letter of the 8th inst. is full of interest to me, and I shall follow out your hints as far as I can. I rejoice in furnishing facts to others to work up in their bearing on general questions, and feel it the more my duty to do so inasmuch as from preoccupation of mind and time and want of experience I am unable to contribute direct original investigations of the sort to the advancement of science.
Your request at the close of your letter, which you have such needless hesitation in making, is just the sort of one which it is easy for me to reply to, as it lies directly in my way. It would probably pass out of my mind, however, at the time you propose, so I will attend to it at once, to fill up the intervals of time left me while attending to one or two pupils. So I take some unbound sheets of a copy of the "Manual," and mark off the "close species" by connecting them with a bracket.
Those thus connected, some of them, I should in revision unite under one, many more Dr. Hooker would unite, and for the rest it would not be extraordinary if, in any case, the discovery of intermediate forms compelled their union.
As I have noted on the blank page of the sheets I send you (through Sir William Hooker), I suppose that if we extended the area, say to that of our flora of North America, we should find that the proportion of "close species" to the whole flora increased considerably. But here I speak at a venture. Some day I will test it for a few families.
If you take for comparison with what I send you, the "British Flora," or Koch's "Flora Germanica," or Godron's "Flora of France," and mark the "close species" on the same principle, you will doubtless find a much greater number. Of course you will not infer from this that the two floras differ in this respect; since the difference is probably owing to the facts that (1) there have not been so many observers here bent upon detecting differences; and (2) our species, thanks mostly to Dr. Torrey and myself, have been more thoroughly castigated. What stands for one species in the "Manual" would figure in almost any European flora as two, three, or more, in a very considerable number of cases.
In boldly reducing nominal species J. Hooker is doing a good work; but his vocation--like that of any other reformer--exposes him to temptations and dangers.
Because you have shown that a and b are so connected by intermediate forms that we cannot do otherwise than regard them as variations