Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC1514
MUN/1/136
Munro, General William
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
25 Mar 1876
© The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Letters to General William Munro
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
4 page letter over 1 folio
 
Transcript

newly germinated plants that we raise are killed for rapid alteration of temperature & humidity. just as the full grown ones are by over--watering.
By the way will you tell me what is your practice as to repotting, hard, & soft wooded plants; -- do you in either neither or both cases "water well immediately after potting to settle the soil" -- My notion is that the evil of the Kew system commences with this watering to settle

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THE ROYAL SOCIETY,
BURLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON, W.*1
March 25/[18]78[?]
Dear Munro*2
I told Smith to send you the seeds on the mere chance of you caring for any. They were from Sikkim & no doubt there are excellent things amongst them, but which is which we can no more tell than you can.
I have little doubt but that Ellacombe is right about raising seeds in the dark; but perhaps not because it the means employed produces darkness but uniform humidity. I am sure that half the

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newly germinated plants that we raise are killed for rapid alteration of temperature & humidity. just as the full grown ones are by over--watering.
By the way will you tell me what is your practice as to repotting, hard, & soft wooded plants; -- do you in either neither or both cases "water well immediately after potting to settle the soil" -- My notion is that the evil of the Kew system commences with this watering to settle

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the soil.
I am not sure of the hooked scaled pine, but believe it to be P. tuberculata
I shall indeed be glad of Fagus betuloides.
There must be "a screw loose" in your heating apparatus if it will not raise that little house of yours to boiling point if necessary -- there must be some defects in the circulation.
Harriet is much better at Torquay both of Dyspepsia &

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cough.
Most sincerely y[our]s | Jos D Hooker [signature]

ENDNOTES


1. The address is crossed out by hand.
2. General William Munro
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