self present it. Unless you think
of some better journal, there is the "Agricultural Gazette": I have
occasionally suggested articles for publication to the editor (though
personally unknown to me) which he has always accepted.
Permit me again to thank you for the thorough manner in which you have
worked out this case; to kill an error is as good a service as, and
sometimes even better than, the establishing a new truth or fact.
LETTER 753. TO A. STEPHEN WILSON. Down, February 13th, 1880.
It was very kind of you to send me two numbers of the "Gardeners'
Chronicle" with your two articles, which I have read with much interest.
(753/1. "Gardeners' Chronicle," 1879, page 652; 1880, pages 108, 173.)
You have quite convinced me, whatever Mr. Asher may say to the contrary.
I want to ask you a question, on the bare chance of your being able to
answer it, but if you cannot, please do not take the trouble to write.
The lateral branches of the silver fir often grow out into knobs through
the action of a fungus, Aecidium; and from these knobs shoots grow
vertically (753/2. The well-known "Witches-Brooms," or "Hexen-Besen,"
produced by the fungus Aecidium elatinum.) instead of horizontally, like
all the other twigs on the same branch. Now the roots of Cruciferae and
probably other plants are said to become knobbed through the action of
a fungus: now, do these knobs give rise to rootlets? and, if so, do they
grow in a new or abnormal direction? (753/3. The parasite is probably
Plasmodiophora: in this case no abnormal rootlets have been observed, as
far as we know.)
LETTER 754. TO W. THISELTON-DYER. Down, June 18th, 1879.
The plants arrived last night in first-rate order, and it was very very
good of you to take so much trouble as to hunt them up yourself. They
seem exactly what I wanted, and if I fail it will not be for want of
perfect materials. But a confounded painter (I beg his pardon) comes
here to-night, and for the next two days I shall be half dead with
sitting to him; but after then I will begin to work at the plants and
see what I can do, and very curious I am about the results.
I have to thank you for two very interesting letters. I am delighted
to hear, and with surprise, that you care about old Erasmus D. God only
knows what I shall make of his life--it is such new kind of work to me.
(754/1. "Erasmus Darwin." By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by
W.S. Dallas: with a preliminary notice by Charles
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