Rejects JDH’s suggestion that seed-salting experiments be conducted on huge scale. Only wishes to demonstrate possibility of sea transport, not establishment of any particular insular flora. More seed results.

More on seed-salting. JDH’s admission that he expected seeds to die in a week gives CD "a nice little triumph".

Praise for JL’s interesting paper ["On the freshwater entomostraca of South America", Trans. Entomol. Soc. Lond. n.s. 3 (1854–6): 232–46].

Discusses installation of watering system. Sent question to Gardeners’ Chronicle but, through EC’s kindness, superfluously.

JDH to be appointed Assistant Director at Kew.

On where to publish seed-salting paper. Floating problem perhaps more important than germination.

CD upset because salted seeds do not float.

CD’s seed paper in Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 255–8];

CD attacks Forbes’s "Atlantis".

Considers solutions to floating problem. Decides to test Azores seeds.

Photographs and drawings of CD.

Plant movement experiments with Hedysarum gyrans.

Is sorry to hear that WED has been ill.

Discusses pigeons and his pigeon work.

Asks JDH not to send H. C. Watson’s paper on Azores plants [Hooker’s Lond. J. Bot. 2 (1843): 1–9, 125–31, 394–408; 3 (1844): 582–617; 6 (1847): 380–97].

CD cannot endure trying all the Azorean seeds.

Seeds: worried they will turn into another barnacle job.

Studies plants colonising abandoned field.

Experiment on plant sleep movements.

CD objects to "Atlantis" because no evidence; does not affect species theory.

Detailed response to JDH’s critique of sea transport and continental connection theories. JDH’s claim that low plants are widely distributed fits both theories.

Species theory does not touch origin of life.

Thanks for Hedysarum.

Pleasure in identifying field plants.

Has used borrowing rights at Linnean Society Library arranged for him by JDH.

Asks whether JSH considers Lychnis diurna and L. vespertina species or varieties.

Asks for help with his work on hybrids.

Would like JSH to go over London catalogue of British plants, marking "close species", i.e., those he considers real species but which are very closely allied. Withholds his motive as it might influence the result.

Has found Agrostis with worms in every germen and no stamens on stigma.

Now has 46 kinds of peas all growing together.

Sends a list of plants with stamps to pay the Hitcham girls who will collect seeds for him.

Describes his work with seeds in salt water.

For his experiments he would like seeds collected from plants that grow both near Hitcham and in the Azores.

Explains again what JSH should do in marking "close species".

Has named 35 species of grasses.

Seed-salting continues.

Thanks JSH for seeds.

Clarifies his request about marking [London] catalogue [of British plants] – JSH is to mark those he thinks really are species, but which are very closely allied to some other species.

Asks for advice on establishing a control group in his experiments to produce sports and varieties of Lychnis diurna.

Seeks seeds of wild Dianthus for hybridising and producing varieties.

CD experiments: sowing seeds in fields; "breaking" seeds’ constitution with coloured light; plant hybridisation. Compiling works on hybridism.

Respect for W. B. Carpenter.

Note on "nectar secreting" to Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 258–9].

Sends a list of 22 plants that grow at Hitcham and in the Azores and are, according to H. C. Watson, least likely to have been imported [by man]. Will pay the little girls of Hitcham liberally to collect the seeds for his experiments.