414 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [1855. 



ment like a good Christian. I have in small bottles out of 

 doors, exposed to variation of temperature, cress, radish, 

 cabbages, lettuces, carrots, and celery, and onion seed — four 

 great families. These, after immersion for exactly one week, 

 have all germinated, which I did not in the least expect (and 

 thought how you would sneer at me) ; for the water of nearly 

 all, and of the cress especially, smelt very badly, and the 

 cress seed emitted a wonderful quantity of mucus (the ' Ves- 

 tiges ' would have expected them to turn into tadpoles), so 

 as to adhere in a mass ; but these seeds germinated and 

 grew splendidly. The germination of all (especially cress 

 and lettuces) has been accelerated, except the cabbages, 

 which have come up very irregularly, and a g8od many, I 

 think, dead. One would have thought, from their native 

 habitat, that the cabbage would have stood well. The Um- 

 belliferae and onions seem to stand the salt well. I wash the 

 seed before planting them. I have written to the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle^^ though I doubt whether it was worth while. If 

 my success seems to make it wortli while, I will send a seed 

 list, to get you to mark some different classes of seeds. To- 

 day I replant the same seeds as above after fourteen days' 

 immersion. As many sea-currents go a mile an hour, even 

 in a week they might be transported 168 miles ; the Gulf 

 Stream is said to go fifty and sixty miles a day. So much 

 and too much on this head ; but my geese are always 

 swans. . . . 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



[April 14th, 1855.] 

 . . . You are a good man to confess that you expected the 

 cress would be killed in a week, for this gives me a nice little 



* A few words asking for information. The results were published in 

 the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' May 26, Nov. 24, 1855. In the same year (p. 

 789) he sent a P, S. to his foraier paper, correcting a misprint and add- 

 ing a few words on the seeds of the Leguminosae. A fuller paper on the 

 germination of seeds after treatment in salt water, appeared in the ' Lin- 

 naean Soc. Journal,' 1857, p. 130. 



