From James Torbitt   1 April 1876

Sydenham | Belfast

1 April 1876

Charles Darwin Esq. | Down | Beckenham | Kent.

Dear Sir

With the greatest respect permit me to thank you for your kindness in replying to my question what is an individual?1 and to apologize for my absurd request for liberty to publish it.

I was applying to Mr Murray for liberty to reprint one page of “The Variations of Animals and Plants under domestication” which was granted, and the total differences of the requests did not strike me and I sent on the two telegrams together.2

I beg leave to take the librety of enclosing paper on pages 46 to 54 of which, are some reports on potatoes grown from the seed last season, which perhaps you might like to see, and which is the first copy issued.3

Permit me Dear Sir to subscribe myself | most respectfully yours | James Torbitt

2
Torbitt’s letter or telegram requesting permission to publish CD’s letter to him of 26 January 1876 has not been found. Torbitt evidently applied to John Murray (CD’s publisher) to reprint a passage from Variation on the differences between sexual and asexual generation (Variation 2: 362–3) in his pamphlet on potato blight (Torbitt 1876, p. 58), but no letter from Torbitt to Murray has been found.
3
Torbitt 1876, pp. 46–54, contains reports by various correspondents on growing potatoes in 1875, and the proportion of the crop that was diseased.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10437,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10437