Darwin-Hooker Letters : Letter from C. R. Darwin to J. D. Hooker   12 [December 1862]

Darwin, Charles Robert

Darwin-Hooker Letters

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Maintains his view on crossing. Thinks practical breeders would agree with him; doubts that variability and domestication are at all necessarily correlative.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Identical plants in different conditions a heavy argument against "direct action" [of physical conditions].</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>His 1000-pigeon case is altered if long-beaked are in least degree sterile with short-beaked.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>His work on dimorphism inclines him to believe that sterility is at first a selected quality to keep incipient species distinct.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Case of easy modification of <i>Lythrum</i> pollen to favour or prevent crossing.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Monsters.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Has just finished chapter on variations of cultivated plants.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Edinburgh doctors have sent him Diploma of Medical Society.</p>