1846.] BOTANY. 345 



your visits to Down, and I shall feel a lost man in London 

 without my morning " house of call " at Hart Street. . . . 

 Believe me, my dear Lyell, ever yours, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to y. D. Hooker. 



Down, Farnborough, Kent, 

 Thursday, September, 1846. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, I hope this letter will catch you at 

 Clifton, but I have been prevented writing by being unwell, 

 and having had the Homers here as visitors, which, with my 

 abominable press-work, has fully occupied my time. It is, 

 indeed, a long time since we wrote to each other ; though, I 

 beg to tell you, that I wrote last, but what about I cannot 

 remember, except, I know, it was after reading your last 

 numbers,* and I sent you a uniquely laudatory epistle, con- 

 sidering it was from a man who hardly knows a Daisy from 

 a Dandelion to a professed Botanist. . . . 



I cannot remember what papers have given me the 

 impression, but I have that, which you state to be the case, 

 firmly fixed on my mind, namely, the little chemical impor- 

 tance of the soil to its vegetation. What a strong fact it is, 

 as R. Brown once remarked to me, of certain plants being 

 calcareous ones here, which are not so under a more favour- 

 able climate on the Continent, or the reverse, for I forget 

 which ; but you, no doubt, will know to what I refer. By- 

 the-way, there are some such cases in Herbert's paper in the 

 'Horticultural Journal.'f Have you read it : it struck me as 

 extremely original, and bears directly on your present re- 

 searches.} To a non-botanist the chalk has the most peculiar 

 aspect of any flora in England ; why will you not come here 

 to make your observations ? We go to Southampton, if my 



* Hooker's Antarctic Botany. } Sir J. Hooker was at this time 



f 'Journal of the Horticultural attending to polymorphism, vari- 

 Society,' 1846. ability, &c. 



