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Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Board of Agriculture.
Germantown, Pa. June 8 1882

Department of Botany
Thos. Meehan,
Botanist.

Francis Darwin Esq

Dear Sir,

It gives me great pleasure to accede to your request as far as I am able

It has been my practice for many years, when I have a letter giving any information about any plan, to put these letters in envelopes, and enclose them with name of the plants referred to, and these are alphabetically arranged for ready reference in my literary work. Hence a large number of letters I could not refer to unless I should happen to remember the subject of the reference. My other correspondence is simply "Saved" in several bundles without any order or system, as I have simply put these by in case age or sickness should incapacitate me from more active work. As most of these are without envelopes, and my correspondence happens to have very varies and extensive, and my health has fortunately

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permitted me over thirty-years of very active life, I am not able to do full justice to your desires. Moreover some letters I am sorry not to find. One especially in which he very kindly tells me that among the satisfactions his work gave him, was the pleasure he experienced in reading one of my papers which had evidently been suggested by his writings. This would have been a fair "set off" to one I enclose in which he leaves[?] disappointed. It is at least a great pleasure to me to read now again, that he was pleased with one of my reviews of his books.    Should any explanation of any of the letters be needed I shall have much pleasure in offering them to you.      The letter of May 13 1878 refers to a paper of mine on Linum perenne in which I showed that here its pollen was better than "inorganic dust" , — but I distinctly stated in the same paper, and which I found your father had overlooked, that the observation tended to show that plants should not behave the same under all circumstances. It

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Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Board of Agriculture.
Germantown, Pa. June 8 1882

Department of Botany
Thos. Meehan,
Botanist.

 

It never entered my thoughts to discredit any other's observations, much less his!

I mail to you with this a sketch some verbal remarks I made recently before the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in which I have marked a paragraph again bearing on the former subject. The Academy limits the number of copies it gives to the authors, and I have many correspondents who desire them,— but if you continue the admirable researches which your father delighted in, and would  care to receive these papers, I know of no one to whom they would be sent with greater pleasure,—

And please accept, my Dear Sir, my cordial sympathy in the affectionate task which you have set for yourself, and believe me to be always truly yours

Thomas Meehan