To J. S. Henslow   16 May [1845]

My dear Henslow

The Lyells have been staying here & we have just heard from them that M^rs. Henslow has lately been much out of health. Their account referred to some little time ago, & I sincerely hope it does not now apply: do pray sometime before very long let me have a line to say how she is.

I am at work with a second edition of my Journal for Murray to bring out cheap, viz at 7^s’6^d in his Colonial Library: I find a good deal to alter in the scientific part: doing this work reminds me regularly of your great kindness in undergoing the wearisome labour of looking through all the proof-sheets. I hope, also, this autumn to get out my last Geological part & right glad shall I be, for I am wearied with S. America; your words’, which at first astounded me, viz that it w^d take me twice the number of years of the voyage to publish its results, will be more than verifyed.

I heard lately from Hooker,¹ who gives me a wonderful account of the Galapagos plants—12 new genera of the Compositæ, all confined to the group & no one species found on two islands!

I was telling my Father at Shrewsbury (where I have lately been) that you had gone into the Barberry versus corn-question & that you were a disbeliever:² on which he told me he had once had his attention called by a farmer to a very large field of corn, in the one of the hedges of which there were at almost regular intervals Barberry bushes, & my Father declares, that from each of them a wedge, pointing obliquely into the field, of discoloured corn, was most conspicuous. Next year the Barberries were all grubbed up.

When at Shrewsbury I read an article in the last Edinburgh Review on the Claims of Labour,³ which interested me but I do not know how far you would agree with the writer.— I have often thought that I was foolish to trouble you with my remarks on this subject; but your letter set me thinking, & thoughts whether right or wrong, new or very old, like to make their escape.

Believe me my dear Henslow, ever yours | C. Darwin