1857-1 WATER-CURE. 44 (, 



hairy and with proportionally larger and brighter-coloured 

 flowers in ascending a mountain ? 



I have been interested in my "weed garden," of 3X2 feet 

 square : I mark each seedling as it appears, and I am 

 astonished at the number that come up, and still more at 

 the number killed by slugs, &c. Already 59 have been so 

 killed ; I expected a good many, but I had fancied that this 

 was a less potent check than it seems to be, and I attributed 

 almost exclusively to mere choking, the destruction of the 

 seedlings. Grass-seedlings seem to suffer much less than 

 exogens. . . . 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Moor Park, Farnham [April (?) 1857]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, Your letter has been forwarded to 

 me here, where I am undergoing hydropathy for a fortnight, 

 having been here a week, and having already received an 

 amount of good which is quite incredible to myself and quite 

 unaccountable. I can walk and eat like a hearty Christian, 

 and even my nights are good. I cannot in the least under- 

 stand how hydropathy can act as it certainly does on me. 

 It dulls one's brain splendidly ; I have not thought about 

 a single species of any kind since leaving home. Your note 

 has taken me aback ; I thought the hairiness, &c., of Alpine 

 species was generally admitted ; I am sure I have seen it 

 alluded to a score of times Falconer was haranguing on it 

 the other day to me Meyen or Gay, or some such fellow 

 (whom you would despise), I remember, makes some remark 

 on Chilian Cordillera plants, Wimmer has written a little book 

 on the same lines, and on varieties being so characterised in 

 the Alps. But after writing to you, I confess I was staggered 

 by finding one man (Moquin-Tandon, I think) saying that 

 Alpine flowers are strongly inclined to be white, and Linnaeus 

 saying that cold makes plants apetalous, even the same 

 species ! Are Arctic plants often apetalous ? My general 

 belief from my compiling work is quite to agree with what 



