My dear Sir.

Absence from home has prevented me from sooner thanking you for your kind present of your several publications—¹ I procured some time ago your “Organbildung &c.”—but it was too late for me to profit by it for my book, as I was correcting the press,— I read only parts, but my son Francis read the whole with care and told me much about it, which greatly interested me.² I also read your article in Bot. Zeitung³ My son began at once experimenting to test your views & this very night will read a paper before the Linnean Soc, on the roots of Rubus, & I think that you will be pleased to find how well his conclusions agree with yours.—⁴ He will of course send you a copy of his paper when it is printed   I have sent him your letter which will please him if he agrees with me, for your letter has given me real pleasure and I did not at all know, what the many great physiologists of Germany Switzerland & Holland would think of it— I was quite sorry to read Sachs’ views about root forming matter &^c. for I have an unbounded admiration for Sachs.—⁵ In this country we are dreadfully behind in Physiological Botany—

Once again thanking you for your very kind letter I remain | My dear Sir. | Yours sincerely. | Ch. Darwin.

The copy of your work which I procured shall be sent to the Royal or Linnean Society as on reflexion we think it would be most useful.—⁶