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 good 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 worth 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 I4th, 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 former 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- 

 n^ean Soc. Journal/ 1857, p. 130, 



