ink the right-hand
side, when the leaf is viewed from the apex) is protected by waxy
secretion, and not the other half (693/2. In the above passage "leaf"
should be "leaflet": for a figure of Trifolium resupinatum see Letter
740.); so that when the leaf is dipped into water, exactly half the leaf
comes out dry and half wet. What the meaning of this can be I cannot
even conjecture. I read last night your very interesting article in
"Kosmos" on Crotalaria, and so was very glad to see the dried leaves
sent by you: it seems to me a very curious case. I rather doubt whether
it will apply to Lupinus, for, unless my memory deceives me, all the
leaves of the same plant sometimes behaved in the same manner; but I
will try and get some of the same seeds of the Lupinus, and sow them in
the spring. Old age, however, is telling on me, and it troubles me to
have more than one subject at a time on hand.

(693/3. In a letter to F. Muller (September 10, 1881) occurs a sentence
which may appropriately close this series: "I often feel rather ashamed
of myself for asking for so many things from you, and for taking up so
much of your valuable time, but I can assure you that I feel grateful.")

2.XI.III. MISCELLANEOUS, 1868-1881.

LETTER 694. TO G. BENTHAM. Down, April 22nd, 1868.

I have been extremely much pleased by your letter, and I take it as
a very great compliment that you should have written to me at such
length...I am not at all surprised that you cannot digest pangenesis:
it is enough to give any one an indigestion; but to my mind the idea
has been an immense relief, as I could not endure to keep so many large
classes of facts all floating loose in my mind without some thread of
connection to tie them together in a tangible method.

With respect to the men who have recently written on the crossing
of plants, I can at present remember only Hildebrand, Fritz Muller,
Delpino, and G. Henslow; but I think there are others. I feel sure that
Hildebrand is a very good observer, for I have read all his papers, and
during the last twenty years I have made unpublished observations on
many of the plants which he describes. [Most of the criticisms which I
sometimes meet with in French works against the frequency of crossing I
am certain are the result of mere ignorance. I have never hitherto found
the rule to fail that when an author describes the structure of a flower
as specially adapted for self-fertilisation, it is really adapted f