WCP4136

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb[ruar]y 6^th. 1895

My dear Galton

If I remember rightly my letter, to which you refer, was mainly a statement of some suggested experiments which, in my opinion, would serve to test the question of the inheritance of acquired variations, and the reason I marked it private was, because it was written hastily and without that careful and leisurely consideration which would be given to a paper for publication. I had, & have, no objection to its being shown to any one interested, but only to its being in anyway made public by being printed. As to Cunningham’s [2] suggestion, of course the thing ought to be done somehow; but Francis Darwin called on me the other day, & he said that there was a feeling at Cambridge that Cunningham was not a man of sufficient weight to carry it through, & that many would have nothing to say to it ^{from here—} which seems to be the case.

I think your plan would be a good one, any why should not you, Lankester, Poulton, & one or two others start it in earnest? Would Flower support it & get the Zool.[ogical] Soc.[iety] to allow experiments in the Gardens? The Jodrell Laboratory [3] at Kew ought to be the very place & means of experiments with plants. How I wish Darwin had left money for such experiments instead of ^for that huge Kew Catalogue of Plants which is being made so expensive and bulky that it will be almost useless for the purpose he intended it for, & really money wasted.

Surely if the thing were made sufficiently known & its importance dwelt on, there are some few rich men who would endow a modest institution of the kind needed.

I am sorry my article on [4] Bateson’s & your views has been cut in two but it has been in the Ed.[itor] of Fornightly’s hands— & proofs corrected— since last August, & only now got in! I told you at the time you published your finger print articles that I thought your dedication from them as to Nat.[ural] Selection & species &c. all wrong, & you will see I still hold that view & give my reasons.

I would rather you did not send my letter to Cunningham. Wait till something definite is being proposed or doing.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Francis Galton Esq.[uire] F.R.S.