Dear Sir

Although I know but too well that you will feel annoyed when receiving this third letter from me I still take the liberty of writing it, in order to make the suggestion which you will find at its [close]   It requires no reply, as you will yourself see; and thanking you for the trouble you have taken in answering me twice I do not at all consider you obliged to sacrifice any more of yr time for that purpose.¹ I do not say that on account of any expressions of yours but merely as a matter of fact.

In reply to your opinion about the dormant seeds I quote the following facts:

1) In 1874 a large quantity of Saxonca seeds were purchased in the German Colony Katherinenstadt to be given to the peasants near Lasino, where there had been an extraordinarily bad harvest.² I trial of the seeds was before made; and 100 seeds produced 95 plants. Such is the vigour of the seeds and of the soil of those parts. The chance of there remaining many dormant seeds is therefore very small indeed.

2) I never heard of any of the summer seeds producing plants the following year, in those parts at least. Else there would sometimes be some wheat among the barley and the millet, or some millet and barley among the Saxonca. There certainly always is some barley among the Kubanka wheat, about 1 grain among 100. But that must be attributed to a mixture which has some long time ago taken place: because it is absolutely impossible to get Kubanka seeds without barley, unless every seed is taken out separately.

3) The proportion of Saxonca among the Kubanka on old land is so large that if it were attributable to dormant seed the peasants could have observed it.

I now come to the principal point, and to the suggestion which it induces me to make. You say that you could find no young naturalist to go to the Russian steppes. Now on the part of a man who is like you the acknowledged head of all naturalist movement at the present day, such words are strange indeed; and yet they are probably but too true. They afford a new proof for the absolute want of organisation in all branches of research in this country. When I was in Heidelbergh I tried to induce the students with whom I came into contact, to undertake some researches; picking out for them questions not too difficult for them and helping them in the beginning.³ I found nearly 50% of those to whom I made such proposals willing to enter upon them; and if I had been a man of some renown the proportion would have been still larger. I found that even the dullest could be made useful; and all my observations led me to think, that science does not require any more capacities than other avocations. Moltke and Roon could be professors in any university; and many of the officers of the staff are better geographers than the teachers of geography in our public schools.⁴ Karl Vogt calls Valenciennes a blockhead; and although there is probably some exaggeration in this word, there is most likely so much truth in them that thousands of Valenciennes might be called forth, if the energies of the capable youth were not wasted.⁵

Now, of course, the organization of the British Government, adequate in many respects, but very deficient in this, must bear the principal blame. But the British scholars and savants are also at fault. Nothing, for instance, could be simpler than an arrangement between the Royal Society and the London University like that existing between the Berlin University and the Berlin Academy; according to which every academic has a right to lecture in the University. In Berlin this arrangement is scarcely noticed; because the academists who would be likely to lecture have been professors before they became academists. There were however a few academists who lectured without being professors (I remember Eisenstein, Dirksen and Meineke)⁶   In London, where the University is not considered distinguished enough for first rate men, the arrangement would be very valuable indeed. It could only require the building of the necessary lecture rooms, and there can be no doubt that if the proposal were made the money would somehow be forthcoming.

Begging you to excuse the length of this letter I remain | Dr ⁠⟨⁠Sir⁠⟩⁠ Yr obed Ser | G M Asher