5o6 'POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS.' [1880. 



plan of making notes on separate pieces of paper ; I keep 

 several scores of large portfolios, arranged on very thin shelves 

 about two inches apart, fastened to the walls of my study, 

 and each shelf has its proper name or title; and I can thus 

 put at once every memorandum into its proper place. Your 

 book will, I am sure, be very useful to many young students, 

 and I shall beg my son Francis (who intends to devote him- 

 self to the physiology of plants) to read it carefully. 



As for myself I am taking a fortnight's rest, after sending 

 a pile of MS. to the printers, and it was a piece of good 

 fortune that your book arrived as I was getting into my 

 carriage, for I wanted something to read whilst away from 

 home. My MS. relates to the movements of plants, and I 

 think that I have succeeded in showing that all the more 

 important great classes of movements are due to the modifi- 

 cation of a kind of movement common to all parts of all 

 plants from their earliest youth. 



Pray give my kind remembrances to your son, and with 

 my highest respect and best thanks, 



Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 



Charles Darwin. 



P.S. — It always pleases me to exalt plants in the organic 

 scale, and if you will take the trouble to read my last chapter 

 when my book (which will be sadly too big) is published and 

 sent to you, I hope and think that you also will admire some 

 of the beautiful adaptations by which seedling plants are 

 enabled to perform their proper functions. 



[The book was published on November 6, 1880, and 1500 

 copies were disposed of at Mr. Murray's sale. With regard 

 to it he wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (November 23) : — 



''Your note has pleased me much — for I did not expect 

 that you would have had time to read any of it. Read the 

 last chapter, and you will know the whole result, but without 

 the evidence. The case, however, of radicles bending after 

 exposure for an hour to geotropism, with their tips (or brains) 



