From T. H. Farrer   29 March 1878

Board of Trade, | Whitehall Gardens. | S.W.

29. March 1878

My dear Mr Darwin,

My notion—and I believe Mr Caird agrees, is that it would be well to let Mr Torbitt try his experiments this year with the money you have so kindly sent him: and that if he is disposed to go on next year—we should try to get him another £100 which I have no doubt we should easily do.1 If however there were any reason to suppose that any great additional work could be effected this year by sending him more money it could no doubt be done. From his note this scarcely seems to be the case. We both agree that this would be the best way of helping this good work. Getting money from the Govt for a new thing is an endless business: and the country will be ruined by spending hundreds of millions on a disastrous war long before we should get hundreds to feed people with potatoes.2

My advice therefore is to remain as we are for the present unless Mr Torbitt wants more money this year than he now seems to want

Sincerely yours | T H Farrer

CD annotations

1.4 If … done. 1.6] enclosed in quotation marks blue crayon
1.8 Getting … business:] enclosed in quotation marks blue crayon
1
CD had been working with Farrer and James Caird to obtain support for James Torbitt’s potato experiments (see letter to T. H. Farrer, 26 March [1878]). CD had sent a cheque for £100 to enable Torbitt to continue his experiments, but Torbitt had returned it (see first letter from James Torbitt, 24 March 1878).
2
On the threat of British involvement in the Russo-Turkish War, see the letter to R. A. T. Gascoyne-Cecil, [18 May 1878] and n. 2.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11454,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11454