84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



back, asking for further information, as I did not understand 

 what was meant ; but I did not receive any answer for a very 

 long time. I then saw in two newspapers, one published in 

 Kent and the other in Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it 

 was a most remarkable fact that " the beans this year had all 

 grown on the wrong side." So I thought there must be some 

 foundation for so general a statement. Accordingly, I went 

 to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked him whether 

 he had heard anything about it, and he answered, " Oh, no, 

 sir, it must be a mistake, for the beans grow on the wrong 

 side only on leap-year, and this is not leap-year." I then 

 asked him how they grew in common years and how on leap- 

 years, but soon found that he knew absolutely nothing of how 

 they grew at any time, but he stuck to his belief. 



After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with 

 many apologies, said that he should not have written to me 

 had he not heard the statement from several intelligent farm- 

 ers ; but that he had since spoken again to every one of them, 

 and not one knew in the least what he had himself meant. 

 So that here a belief — if indeed a statement with no definite 

 idea attached to it can be called a belief — had spread over al- 

 most the whole of England without any vestige of evidence. 



I have known in the course of my life only three inten- 

 tionally falsified statements, and one of these may have been 

 a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which, 

 however, took in an American Agricultural Journal. It re- 

 lated to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by 

 the crossing of distinct species of Bos (some of which I hap- 

 pen to know are sterile together), and the author had the im- 

 pudence to state that he had corresponded with me, and that 

 I had been deeply impressed with the importance of his re- 

 sult. The article was sent to me by the editor of an English 

 Agricultural Journal, asking for my opinion before republish- 

 ing it. 



A second case was an account of several varieties, raised 

 by the author from several species of Primula, which had 

 spontaneously yielded a full complement of seed, although 



