I am making arrangements for repeating on an extensive scale experiments on budding purple laburnum on yellow, to see if it is possible to reproduce 'Adam's eye' hybrid. If so, it would now be of more importance than ever in relation to Weismann. By the way, he is sorely put to it in the case of plants which reproduce themselves not only by cuttings, but even by leaves. Here he is bound to confess that his germ-plasma occupies all the cellular tissue of the entire plant. But if so, how in the world does his germ-plasma differ from gemmules? There! I did not intend to write you anything of a letter when I began, but have gone on and on till it is well for you that the second sheet is coming to an end. Yours ever, G. J. ROMANES. P.S.--Any contributions to Correvon's garden (however small) would be thankfully received by him. Possibly his garden may be of some use to English botanists; if so, you might send the hat round, and collect any coppers that fall. _To Professor Thiselton-Dyer._ 18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: January 7, 1889. My dear Dyer,--Knowing what a busy man you are, I never expected you to answer my last letter, and therefore it has come as an agreeable surprise. For no doubt you will believe me when I say that I value much more communications which are opposed to physiological selection than those in its favour; the former show me better what has to be done in the way of verification, as well as the general views which may be taken on the subject by other minds. And most of all is this the case when anyone like yourself gives me the benefit of opinions which are formed by a trained experience in botany, seeing that here I am myself such a sorry ignoramus. And I willingly confess that your strongly expressed opinion has seriously shaken my hopes for physiological selection, notwithstanding that some German botanists think otherwise. Nevertheless, I still think that it is worth while to devote some years to experimental testing, and then, if the results are against me--well, I shall be sorry to have spent so much time over a wild flower chase, and to have kicked up so much scientific dust in the process; but I will not be ashamed to acknowledge that Nature has said No.