To W. D. Fox   [before 3 October 1846]1

Down Farnborough Kent

Friday

My dear Fox

The potato seeds were collected from ripe tubers in the Cordillera of central Chile, in a most unfrequented district, many miles from any inhabited spot, & where the plant was certainly in a state of nature— they were collected in the spring (ie autumn of the S. Hemisphere) of 1835 & shipped for England in May, & so probably were planted in the spring of 1836 by Prof. Henslow, from whom came the tuber which you had.—

I see since I wrote to you someone has urged the necessity of sending to S. America for new seed!2

I have sometime thought of calling the attention of the readers of the Gardeners Chronicle to the remarkable difference of climate of the Chonos islands & central Chile, in both of which places the Potato grows wild— if you think it worth while to allude to this, refer to the 1st. Edit. of my Journal, if you have it.—3

Many thanks for your answer about the Potash.4 I shall certainly set up a bottle & quill—

Very many thanks for your most kind invitation to us all, & I assure you it would give us much real pleasure to accept it; but the journey is fearfully long, & my wretched stomach hates visiting out, as much as the rest of the inward man enjoys seeing his old friends—

I enclose list of songs for Mrs Fox, & I wish with all my heart, I cd hear her singing them—5 pray give our kind remembrances to her & believe me | My dear Fox | Ever Yours | C. Darwin

1
The information in this letter was used by Fox in a letter to the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 40, 3 October 1846, p. 661.
2
Continuing anxiety about the potato blight led to many different suggestions about the best way to maintain current stocks and to prevent further devastation. In his letter to the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette (see n. 1, above) Fox asserted that there was no point in growing from seed, since CD’s potatoes were also diseased.
3
The first edition gives more details than the second, although both refer to the difference in climate, see Journal of researches, pp. 347–8, and Journal of researches 2d ed., pp. 285–6. John Lindley, editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle, was an outspoken proponent of the view that potato rot was caused by climatic factors.
4
CD’s letter containing the query has not been found, nor has Fox’s reply.
5
Fox’s first wife, Harriet, had died in 1842 (see Correspondence vol. 2, letter to W. D. Fox, 23 March [1842]). He remarried on 20 May 1846; his second wife was Ellen Sophia Woodd.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 collected] after del ‘sent off early’
1.4 (ie autumn of the S. Hemisphere)] interl
4.2 & quill] over ‘—’
5.1 us all] before omitted point

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13809,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13809