Dear Sir

Would you kindly communicate the following fact to M^r. Darwin:

On the steppes along the river Wolga a kind of wheat called Cubanka or White Turkish wheat is cultivated; which only maintains its original character as long as the soil is nearly virgin; then changing over into another kind well known in the English market as “Saxonca”.² These two kinds of wheat, are as regards the plant (not so much as regards the corn itself) as plainly different from each other as any two kinds of the same plant can be. What is most strange is that (by my inexperienced eye at least) no intermediate forms could be discovered; but that on the same field ⁠⟨⁠and⁠⟩⁠ from the same seed side by side you find Saxonca and Cubanka wheat. As regards the seed, the Saxonca is shorter and rounder as well as smaller, the Cubanka larger, thicker and heavier; The colour also is mostly for the Cubanka whiter than for the Saxonca. The variations are alltogether so great that I witnessed wheat from the same neighbourhood being sold for about 15/– and about 7/– ⁠⟨⁠a⁠⟩⁠ hundredweight.

If Mr. Darwin should think the matter interesting I shall try to obtain for him specimens of seed and either this autumn or at all events next autumn specimens of the plants: stating how long the seeds have been, from the same ⁠⟨⁠  ⁠⟩⁠ginals, sown on the same field.³ It would however I believe be well worth some young botanist’s while to go to the Russian steppes and to collect specimens.

Close inquiry will no doubt show an extraordinary disposition to vary; and at the same time a jumping passage from ⁠⟨⁠one⁠⟩⁠ variety to another which is, I believe contrary to the generally assumed laws of variation. | Dear Sir | Yr truly | D^r. G. M. Asher