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From Samuel Newington   30 August 1875

Ridgeway | Ticehurst.

30th August 1875

Dear Sir:

I sh: much like you to see a bird I have here, to which the enclosed description refers.1 I have also a vine I think you would take an interest in. it is the Madresfield Court; a large oval grape, inarched on the Black Hamburgh, both vines growing on their own roots. The type ie, the B Hamburgh. has got the better of the sport, the M Court: the berries on the MC being quite round & the flavour changed to that of the B Hamburgh.2 I have several other things which I think would interest you. I see a train leaves Sevenoaks at 2-37. & arrives at Wadhurst at 3-25, where I could send to meet you.3

I find that if the type be cut off from the sport, the sap of the type causes the oval grapes of the sport to be spherical for one year, but not afterwards.

believe me | Yrs Faithfully | S Newington.

1
The enclosure has not been found, but was a description of an apparent duck–fowl hybrid (see the letter from Samuel Newington, 10 December 1875).
2
Black Hamburgh and Madresfield are varieties of Vitis vinifera (the wine grape). Newington is using ‘sport’ in the sense of ‘scion’, and ‘type’ in the sense of ‘stock’.
3
Wadhurst in Sussex was about three miles from Newington’s residence in Ticehurst.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10140,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10140