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To Gardeners’ Chronicle   [before 6 December 1856]1

I have been lately collecting all the evidence which I can get from the observation of others and my own, on the natural crossing of varieties of plants. The evidence in regard to Leguminous plants is curiously conflicting, but preponderates against their ever crossing without artificial aid.2 I should esteem it a singular favour if any of your correspondents would give in your paper or send me any evidence showing either that Leguminous crops, when grown close together, do sometimes cross; or, on the other hand, that they may invariably be grown close together without any chance of deterioration.3 Charles Darwin, Down, Bromley, Kent.

1
Dated from the issue of the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette in which the letter appeared.
2
CD summarised contemporary views of this point in Natural selection, pp. 69–71. He was principally concerned with the conflicting opinions of Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann in Wiegmann 1828 and Karl Friedrich von Gärtner in Gärtner 1849.
3
No response has been located in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2012,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2012