Search: 1850-1859 in date 
Gardeners’ Chronicle in correspondent 
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Showing 119 of 19 items

From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 10 Jan 1852]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 2, 10 January 1852, p. 22
Summary:

Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle whether they have experience with light wire rope instead of chain in drawing water buckets from deep wells. Describes the problem of his own well with its 325 foot chain.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[c. 27 Apr 1853]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 19, 7 May 1853, p. 302
Summary:

Solicits information about the kind of syphon required to convey water from a proposed large water tank to existing smaller ones.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
11 Apr [1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 15, 14 April 1855, p. 242
Summary:

CD describes his experiments on the effects on germination of the immersion of seeds in sea-water. Hopes to throw light on the distribution of plants. Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle to inform him whether such experiments have already been tried and what class or species of seeds they suppose would be particularly liable to be killed by sea-water.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
21 May [1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 21, 26 May 1855, pp. 356–7
Summary:

Reports on his experiments on action of sea-water on seeds and the bearing of his investigations on the theory of centres of creation and Edward Forbes’s theory of continental extensions to account for distribution of organic forms. CD’s experiments confirm germination powers were retained after 42 days’ immersion by seven out of eight kinds of seeds.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 26 May 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 21, 26 May 1855, p. 360
Summary:

Will be obliged if any reader can provide eggs of lizard Lacerta agilis. Wants to ascertain whether they float in sea-water. Offers reward of a few shillings to boys for collecting.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 21 July 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 29, 21 July 1855, p. 487
Summary:

Reports on observing hive-bees visiting the leaves of vetch and bean and sucking the minute drops of nectar secreted by the glands on the underside of the stipulae. This phenomenon proves wrong those botanists who believe nectar to be a special secretion for the sole purpose of luring insects to visit flowers and thus to aid in their fertilisation.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 3 Nov 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 44, 3 November 1855, p. 726
Summary:

CD requests further details about a rain of shells on the Isle of Wight reported by a Gardeners’ Chronicle correspondent.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
13 Nov [1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 46, 17 November 1855, p. 758
Summary:

Reports a case of charlock seeds that retained their vitality for at least eight or nine years. He suggests that their power of retaining vitality when buried in damp soil may be an element in preserving the species and therefore seeds may be specially endowed with this capacity, while the power of retaining vitality in dry, artificial conditions may be an indirect accidental quality of little or no use to the species.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
21 Nov [1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 47, 24 November 1855, p. 773
Summary:

Sends final results of his experiments on the vitality of various kinds of seeds immersed in sea-water. Corrects a false assumption he made in an earlier letter [1684] that plants with ripe seeds would float for some weeks. Now finds that they sink within a month. Since all the seeds he tried sank in sea-water, his experiments are of little or no use "in regard to the distribution of plants by drifting of their seeds across the sea".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 1 Dec 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 48, 1 December 1855, p. 789
Summary:

Corrects a misprint in his letter [1783].

Adds that his experiments show that one cannot infer from the vitality of seeds under dry conditions that they will be preserved in different conditions. Cites the poor ability of Leguminosae to withstand immersion.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 29 Dec 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854
Summary:

Cites [from Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung (1849), p. 157] a report that seeds from graves of ancient Gauls germinated.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 29 Dec 1855]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854
Summary:

CD requests accurate information on the extent to which the different varieties of fruit-trees produce seedlings like their parents. Do some varieties of pears and apples tend to produce truer offspring than other varieties?

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 6 Dec 1856]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 6 December 1856, p. 806
Summary:

CD is collecting all the evidence he can on natural crossing of varieties of plants. Asks readers of Gardeners’ Chronicle to give evidence "showing either that Leguminous crops, when grown close together do sometimes cross or on the other hand that they may invariably be grown close together without any chance of deterioration".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[after 28 Feb 1857]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 7 March 1857, p. 155
Summary:

Reports that he fertilised a single pale red carnation with the pollen of a crimson Spanish pink, and a Spanish pink with the pollen of the same carnation. He got seed from both crosses and raised many seedlings. There was no difference between the seedlings from reciprocal crosses, not one plant set a single seed.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 13 June 1857]
Source of text:
Gloucestershire Archives (T. C. Morton deposit D1021/8/4)
Summary:

Requests information from readers on breeding of dun or mouse-coloured ponies with a dark stripe down their backs. Must one or both parents be dun?

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 25 July 1857]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 25 July 1857, p. 518
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.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
18 Oct [1857]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 24 October 1857, p. 725
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.]

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 12 Nov 1857]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 14 November 1857, p. 779
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?"

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Gardeners’ Chronicle
Date:
[before 13 Nov 1858]
Source of text:
Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette , 13 November 1858, pp. 828–9
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".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project