From Searles Valentine Wood 16 July 1866
Brentwood, Essex,
July 16. 1866
My dear Sir
Most probably you are aware of what I am going to tell you but if not it may be interesting. A friend of mine has a relation a farmer in Cambridgeshire who I am informed regularly sows Oats which are fed off the first year & the stalks are permitted to remain in the ground during the Winter. these come up Barley in the following Summer & this mode of husbandry is commonly adopted on that farm.1 If you shod be unacquainted with this method of raising a crop of Barley & wod like me to obtain for you further particulars I shall have great pleasure in doing so so that you might yourself verify the fact
I will also mention another circumstance (curious to me) of which I have been informed by an old resident in New Zealand viz that they get the finest Peaches out of the Bush Country grown there on Trees which have sprung from Peach stones thrown away by the Natives without any culture2
Yours very truly | Searles Wood
Chas. Darwin Esq.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Barley growing from old oat stalks.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5156
- From
- Searles Valentine Wood
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Brentwood
- Source of text
- DAR 181: 145
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5156,” accessed on 18 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5156.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14