JS should not consider repaying CD; the money was a gift, not a loan.

JS’s information on expression is the best he has received.

Is resuming the study of worm-casts as he believes they will bear on the denudation of land. Requests specific information on the relative number, size, and manner of deterioration of worm-casts in India.

Describes habits of worms.

Discusses Leersia experiments.

JS’s valuable observations on worms in India along with Asa Gray’s in the United States confirm CD’s opinion that worms work in the same way all over the world. Requests further information on the subject.

Acknowledges a box of worm-casts from India and a bottle of worms in spirits. There is no memorandum.

His book on expression is finished and includes valuable information from JS.

Acting as Superintendent of Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta.

Observations on worm-castings in India.

Acknowledges JS’s excellent letter of 25 September. May CD assume that the gigantic worm-casts were nearly circular when measured before the rain?

That a medical man should always have the place of superintendent seems a piece of jobbery.

Mentions [George] King.

JS’s thin paper renders some words on other side almost illegible.

Thanks Hooker and Darwin for the money to emigrate to India to work.

CD has read the two reports on culture of poppies with interest and has planted seeds.

Suggests an experiment for evidence on whether plants, thought merely varieties, are like species and fail to intercross, despite insect pollination.

CD is eager for further information about Lagerstroemia, which is sterile with its own pollen. Does the collection of dried plants reveal more than one form? Plans to republish papers on dimorphism.

Thanks for Cross and self-fertilisation.

His work on poppy varieties confirms increased vigour with crossing.

JS is carrying out opium poppy experiments CD suggested. He is busy with opium duties. Observing many fields of poppies, day and night, JS finds them remarkably free of insects. Believes they are wind-pollinated and that varieties have prepotent pollen since he has shown they do not cross naturally.

Plans to send a paper on Cyclosis to Linnean Society.

Comments on various species of Lagerstroemia.

In the series of opium poppy intercrosses made at CD’s suggestion, JS has learned that the reason they failed to intercross was the absence of insects at the period of their flowering.