To Robert Hutton   [April 1846]1

Down Bromley Kent

Wednesday

My dear Sir

I am very much obliged to you for the loan of the Horticultural Journal: I have read Dr. Herbert’s journal with interest.2 I will return the Journal today to the Athenæum Club & I hope it will not inconvenience you my sending it there, instead of direct to your house.— My wife joins me in kind remembrances to Mrs. Hutton & your family.

Believe me, Yours sincerely, with thanks | C. Darwin

1
Dated from the reference to W. Herbert 1846, which CD was anxious to read, see letter to J. D. Hooker, [8? February 1846]. Robert Hutton was at that time a vice-president of the Geological Society and may have lent CD his copy of the journal on one of CD’s trips to London. The letter has a mourning border of the kind used by CD after the death of Elizabeth (Bessy) Wedgwood on 31 March 1846.
2
CD’s notes on W. Herbert 1846 are in DAR 74: 149–150. CD recorded and commented on the observations that bore upon his notions on competition and adaptation. William Herbert’s observations on the effects of struggle between plants were later used in Natural Selection, pp. 195–6.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 the Horticultural] ‘the’ over ‘Dr’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-952,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-952