WCP2941

[1]¹

Inverquharity

Richmond

30/5/09

My dear Dr Wallace

I was much pleased to get your letter.² Many thanks for the book which I shall be interested to read. I have just lent y^r. "Modern Miracles"³ to a man who is wanting light on these matters. There is an Ethical & Religious Society that meets periodically at the Bishop’s to read papers & discuss & I somehow got entangled in it & read them a paper on "Altruism", its origins &c. It was very Darwinian indeed for a circle of parsons. I send you a copy herewith. I should like to go on working this subject out further, but writing is getting a trouble to me now, instead of a delight.

As to the seeds, I am glad some grew at any rate. Some hand shelled Tas. seeds (the Wattles for example) will not grow unless they are dropped into boiling water & left to cool — or else scorched in fire to crack their shell. Possibly Waratah is one. I have now ceased trying to get yr seeds & bulbs — [illeg.] Several people promised to help me, & some are do still. The Director of Education sent a circular to all the school teachers to enlist their help for me, but nothing came of that. However, I sent you 2 lots of seeds. But quite lately I found that a seedsman on the West Coast is making a business of Collecting native seeds and I at once ordered from him some — stating the kind of seeds you are likely to want — Healthy orchids & lowly plants not big trees — sort of things you might in y^r. life time see come to something:- if I send them straight to you with names & what information you can give. [2] 2 I believe he is sending them by this mail. And he is to try to get me some orchids; but our Tas. Orchids are very common looking & poor. I told him not to send Waratah as we had it already & I meant to add Blandfordia but could not remember the name[.] I specially wanted him to get Bauera (the treacherous creeper that is so dangerous to be caught in) & "Horizontal", I don't know whether he has got either.

"Horizontal" is a heavy wood that grows I believe in loose or wet soil — so its weight binds it over, each tree crushing another (is grown in scrub) & that the next, & then each [illeg.] one sends up fresh shoots till they too f bend over & bend their neighbour till the whole scrub becomes a sort of cubic basket-work almost impossible to get through with a swag to carry — I have [illeg.] along a track cut through such a scrub, in which the stuff felled had to be cut up into short lengths & "pigeon holed" in the scrub to get it out of the way. These two — (Bauera & Horizontal) are the Bushman's deadly foes & he always sets fire to a scrub of them when he gets the chance. There are many Tas. plants I would specially like to get for you but I can't. There is the Native bread, which grows underground to a tuber tuber as big as a man's head & looks when cut, like Tapioca, but showing no top above ground. ^{a finger they say.} I believe the natives used to eat it, but we can't. Then there is the Native yam. I have dug up a whole bucketful as big as kidney potatoes, but not fit to eat, though no doubt they could become so if cultured. But they only show a small top for a short time & every a botanist would know [3] 3 what it was; & no one can get it to grow.

As to Spiritualism I would much like to investigate it, but in this out of the way corner, can't get the chance.

Books don't help me.

In such occult matters I want to witness the facts & cross examine them for myself. But though naturally rather materialistic I'm afraid, I don't see anything so very improbable in the facts stated; because I am an Evolutionist to the backbone, & I take it as a sort of rule of 3 forms:- As much superior as we are to the Monad (or Whatever it was) we sprang from, so much superior to us will probably be the being of the future into which we are developing — (if the solar system lasts long enough) — & this means fresh & wonderful powers; thought reading & the Georgia Magnet are 2 samples which I have witnessed & tested. Telepathy I have not had the chance to test but it seems only a mode of wireless telegraphy, so probable enough. — "Amazon" in the acrostic was right — the 1000 yrs only represented indefiniteness. I should never never have guessed Lewis Carroll.⁴ I thought of [illeg.] imagination almost at once but rejected it as impossible because I understood that it was a word of 3 syllables or 3 equal parts —

I have fought for Land Nat. here for years but seem to make no impression. A strong movement is being made for tax on the "Uninforced Value" but it is fiercely opposed; & we have compulsory purchase but they don't understand. The cry is to break up the big estates, when is right to be a [illeg] ^{force with} us tho with opposition –

— 1/2 an acre in the city class more [2 words illeg.] than 10,000 acres under & keep in the wild bush, which are but left so.

So they buy here & there the wrong kind of estates & give far too much for them. I hope I may hear from you now & again if you can spare the time.

Yours always. | A. J. Ogilvy⁵ [signature]