Ɛpsilon

To A. S. Wilson   29 April [1878]1

Bassett | Southampton

April 29

My dear Sir.

Your kind note and specimens have been forwarded to me here, where I am staying at my son’s house for a fortnight’s complete rest, which I required from rather too hard work.2 For this reason I will not now examine the seeds, but will wait till returning home, when with my son Francis’ aid I will look to them.

I always felt, though without any good reason, rather sceptical about Prof. Buckman’s experiment, and I afterwards heard that a most wicked and cruel trick had been played on him by some of the agricultural students at Cirencester, who had sown seeds unknown to him in his experimental beds.—3 Whether he ever knew this I did not hear.

I am exceedingly glad that you are willing to look into the Russian wheat case.4 It may turn out a mare’s nest, but I have often incidentally observed curious facts when making what I call “a fool’s experiment”.

My dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Copy

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to A. S. Wilson, 24 April 1878.
2
Wilson’s note has not been found. CD visited William Erasmus Darwin in Southampton from 27 April to 13 May 1878 (‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
3
James Buckman had been professor of geology and botany at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, Gloucestershire; he retired in 1863. In Origin, p. 10, CD described an ‘extremely valuable’ experiment by Buckman that appeared to show that species of the same genus that differed greatly in appearance in their natural habitat were indistinguishable when grown under the same conditions in experimental plots. In 1863, he learned that a student who bore Buckman a grudge had mixed the seeds that were used in the experiment (see Correspondence vol. 11, letter from S. P. Woodward, 14 February 1863). CD removed the reference from Origin 4th ed. and all subsequent editions.
4
CD had sent Wilson specimens of Russian wheat varieties that he had received from Mikhail Nikolaevich Galkin-Vraskoi, the governor of Saratov province (see letter to A. S. Wilson, 24 April 1878 and n. 1).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11489,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11489