Correlation and Application of Statistics to Problems of Heredity 135 



consider that scheme as finally dead. Now after thirty years it looks as 

 if Down would be retained as a national possession. One may hope that it 

 will be put to as good and fitting a purpose as Galton proposed for it. He 

 has left a lengthy paper dealing with the work he considered the Biological 

 Farm should undertake; it is based on the suggestions he received from many 

 quarters, modified by his own ideas. It is a scheme for "Further accurate 

 observations on Variation, Heredity, Hybridism, and other phenomena that 

 would elucidate the Evolution of Plants and Animals." The matter is arranged 

 under 16 headings, and it is sad to consider that, although more than thirty 

 years have passed since the scheme was drafted, but little has been done 

 to solve the problems therein suggested. It is impossible to print the full 

 manuscript here, but some idea of what it deals with may be judged from 

 its table of Contents : 



"A. Preparatory. (!) Procedure (especially emphasising the need for continuity in observa- 

 tion and for secular experiments). (2) Cooperation (Institutions and Individuals). (3) Breeds 

 suitable for Experiments (necessity for stores of pure stocks of small animals). (4) Place for 

 Station (Down, and existing establishments). B. Heredity as affected by and related to : (5) Close 

 interbreeding, Panmixia, Prepotency. (6) Hybridism. (7) Telegony. (8) Acquired modifications 

 in parent. (9) Mental influence on Mother ("Jacobise" in a variety of ways). (10) Instinct 

 (nest building by birds, who have never seen the nest of their species ; directive instinct in dogs, 

 taken to unknown place and watched from a distance by a stranger). (11) Variations, "Sports" 

 and their intensity of inheritance. (12) Natural and Physiological Selection. (13) Partheno- 

 genesis. (14) Fertility (many problems stated). (15) Sex and its causes. (16) Gestation." 



The bundle of papers in which this and other schemes and letters from 

 innumerable correspondents are included is labelled by Galton: "Old Papers 

 concerning the Evolution Committee of the R. Soc. of probably no present 

 value. Might be useful if a Darwinian Institute were ever founded." "Of 

 probably no present value"- — what a criticism of the biologists of 1890-1900! 



Here, as in Experimental Psychology, Galton was ahead of his age, and 

 few have recognised how much even by raising these questions, he stimulated 

 that movement for experimental biology, which the present generation of 

 biologists believes was unthought of by their Victorian predecessors. Thus 

 came to an end Galton's plan for an experimental station for evolution; it 

 was another illustration of the futility of working through ill-assorted 

 committees. I say came to an end, but hardly in Galton's mind. It must 

 I think have been in 1903, when in, the summer vacation the biometricians 

 were employed on their summer tasks at Peppard and Galton was of the 

 company, that the matter again arose. One evening he asked his two 

 lieutenants to prepare a draft scheme for a biological farm, to state its size, 

 staff, equipment, its probable cost and annual expenditure for maintenance 

 and experimentation. Weldon and I talked the matter over, and felt that 

 although Galton was well-to-do, he was not so wealthy, that to run a biological 

 farm might not deprive him of some of the easements necessary to his age. 

 We therefore determined to estimate the cost of the farm on the scale of 

 maximum effectiveness. It was a pious fraud, but the suggestion of a biological 

 farm was never again referred to, and Galton's thoughts of increasing human 

 knowledge soon turned to less expensive projects. 



