36 GEOBGE JOHN ROMANES 1875- 



would it not be good to try other tubers as of dahlias 

 and other plants ? I have been re-writing a large 

 portion of the chapter on Pangenesis, and it has been 

 awfully hard work. I will, of course, send you a copy 

 when the work is printed. How I do hope that your 

 fowls will survive ! F. Galton was here for a few hours 

 yesterday ; I see that he is much less sceptical about 

 Pangenesis than he was. 



Dunskaith, Nigg, Eoss-shire, N.B., Sept. 29, 1875. 



My dear Mr. Darwin, — Many thanks for your kind 

 letter. I am an M.A. and a fellow of the Philosophi- 

 cal Society of Cambridge, but otherwise I am nothing, 

 nor have I any publication worth alluding to. I sup- 

 pose, however, this will not matter if I am proposed 

 by yourself, Dr. Hooker, and Mr. Dyer. I think there 

 would be no harm in saying ' attached to Physiology 

 and Zoology.' I may read a paper before the Linnean 

 next November on some new species of Medusae, but 

 I think it is better not to allude to any contributions 

 in advance. 



Your letter about Pangenesis made me long for 

 success more even than does the biological importance 

 of the problem. 1 Yesterday I dug up all my potatoes. 



1 The experiments in graft-hybridisation were to prove that formative 

 material (or gemrnules) was actually present in the general tissues of 

 plants and was capable of uniting with the gemrnules of another plant 

 and thus of reproducing the entire organism. For if the hybrid, afterwards 

 produced, presents equally the characters of the scion and the siock, 

 then formative material must have been present in the tissues of the 

 scion, and it is demonstrated that the somatic tissues of the scion have 

 exercised an effect on the germinal elements of the stock, inasmuch as it 



