EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 151 Verbascum or on maize (see the Origin), such experiments 

 would be pre-eminently important. I could never get varia- 

 tions of Verbascum. I could suggest an experiment on potatoes 

 analogous with the case of Passiflora ; even the case of Passi- 

 flora, often as it has been repeated, might be with advantage 

 repeated. I have worked like a slave (having counted about 

 nine thousand seeds) on Melastoma, on the meaning of the 

 two sets of very different stamens, and as yet have been 

 shamefully beaten, and I now cry for aid. I could suggest 

 what I believe a very good scheme (at least, Dr. Hooker 

 thought so) for systematic degeneration of culinary plants, 

 and so find out their origin ; but this would be laborious and 

 the work of years. 



Letter 152 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down, I2th [Dec., 1862]. 



My good old Friend 



How kind you have been to give me so much of your 

 time ! Your letter is of real use, and has been and shall be 

 well considered. I am much pleased to find that we do not 

 differ as much as 1 feared. I begin my book with saying that 

 my chief object is to show the inordinate scale of variation ; I 

 have especially studied all sorts of variations of the individual. 

 On crossing I cannot change ; the more I think, the more 

 reason I have to believe that my conclusion would be agreed 

 to by all practised breeders. I also greatly doubt about 

 variability and domestication being at all necessarily cor- 

 relative, but I have touched on this in Origin. Plants being 

 identical under very different conditions has always seemed 

 to me a very heavy argument against what I call direct 

 action. I think perhaps I will take the case of 1,000 pigeons 1 

 to sum up my volume ; I will not discuss other points, but, as 

 I have said, I shall recur to your letter. But I must just say 

 that if sterility be allowed to come into play, if long-beaked 

 be in the least degree sterile with short-beaked, my whole 

 case is altered. By the way, my notions on hybridity are 

 becoming considerably altered by my dimorphic work. I am 

 now strongly inclined to believe that sterility is at first a 

 selected quality to keep incipient species distinct. If you 

 Jiave looked at Lythrum you will see how pollen can be 



1 See Letter 146, 



