As I said before, I thank you very much for the consideration and advice you have given, but I know that you would not like me to feel that the expression of your opinion in a matter with which you are not so fully acquainted as myself should lay me under any obligation to be led by it, after mature consideration seemed to show that the best course for me to follow was the one which I took.
Hoping soon to see you, I remain, very sincerely yours,
Geo. J. Romanes.
P.S.—I forgot to say that I acted upon your suggestion about the Linnean, and have been proposed by Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley.
From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes.
Down, Beckenham, Kent: July 12, 1875.
I am correcting a second edition of 'Var. under Dom.,' and find that I must do it pretty fully. Therefore I give a short abstract of potato graft hybrids, and I want to know whether I did not send you a reference about beet. Did you look to this, and can you tell me anything about it? I hope with all my heart that you are getting on pretty well with your experiments; I have been led to think a good deal on the subject, and am convinced of its high importance, though it will take years of hammering before physiologists will admit that the sexual organs only collect the generative elements.
The edition will be published in November, and then you will see all that I have collected, but I believe that you saw all the more important cases. The case of vine in 'Gardeners' Chronicle' which I sent you I think may only be a bud-variation, not due to grafting.
I have heard indirectly of your splendid success with nerves of Medusæ. We have been at Abinger Hall for a month for rest which I much required, and I saw there the cut-leaved vine, which seems splendid for graft hybridisation.
Yours very sincerely,