I am very glad that you are pleased with my progress so far.
From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.
Down, Beckenham, Kent: Sept. 24.
I shall be very glad to propose you for Linnean Soc., as I have just done for my son Francis. There is no doubt about your election. I have written for blank form. Please let me have your title, B.A. or M.A., and title of any book or papers, to which I could add 'various contributions to "Nature."' Also shall I say 'attached to Physiology and Zoology'? When I have signed whole, shall I send a paper to Hooker and others at Kew; or do you wish it sent to some one else for signature? Three signatures are required. The paper will have to be read twice or thrice when Soc. meets in November. But you could get books out of library or out of that of Royal Soc. by my signature or that of any other member.
I am terribly sorry about the onions, as I expected great things from them, the seeds coming, I believe, always true. As tubers of potatoes graft so well, would it not be good to try other tubers as of dahlias and other plants? I have been re-writing a large portion of the chapter on Pangenesis, and it has been awfully hard work. I will, of course, send you a copy when the work is printed. How I do hope that your fowls will survive! F. Galton was here for a few hours yesterday; I see that he is much less sceptical about Pangenesis than he was.
Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire, N.B., Sept. 29, 1875.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—Many thanks for your kind letter. I am an M.A. and a fellow of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge, but otherwise I am nothing, nor have I any publication worth alluding to. I suppose, however, this will not matter if I am proposed by yourself, Dr. Hooker, and Mr. Dyer. I think there would be no harm in saying 'attached to Physiology and Zoology.' I may read a paper before the Linnean next November on some new species of Medusæ, but I think it is better not to allude to any contributions in advance.
Your letter about Pangenesis made me long for success more even than does the biological importance of the problem.[8] Yesterday I dug up all my potatoes. Some of the produce looked suspicious, but more than this I should not dare to say. By this post I send you a box containing some of the best specimens, thinking you may like to see them. The lots marked A and B are sent for comparison with the others, being the kinds I grafted together. If you think it worth while to have the eyes of any of the other lots planted, you might either do so yourself or send them back to me. Lot C is the queerest, and to my perhaps too partial eye looks very like a mixture. In the case of this graft the seed potato was rotten when dug up yesterday, and this may account for the small size of the tubers sent.
I did try dahlias and peonies, but in the former the 'finger and toe' shape of the tubers, with the eyes situated in the worst parts for cutting out clearly, prevented me from getting adhesion in any one case. With the peonies I was too late in beginning. It was also too late in the year when I began Pangenesis to try the spring flowers, but I hope to do so extensively this winter. Next year I shall try grafting beets and mangolds by cutting the young white root into a square shape and placing four red roots all round. In this way the white one will have a maximum surface exposed to the influence of the red ones. I shall also try grafting the crown of the red in the root of the white variety, and vice versâ. I have already done this very successfully with carrots—making a little hole in the top of the root, and fitting in the crown like a cork in a bottle.