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ALS signed “C. D.,” one page, 4.75 x 3, personal letterhead, March 11, [1880]. Handwritten letter to James Torbitt of Belfast, Ireland, in part: "When you answer my queries be so good as to state how much land has been used in cultivating the varieties…How many seedlings have you raised in any one year?" In very good to fine condition, with foxing and light soiling.
Torbitt was an enterprising Irish grocer and wine merchant who aimed to breed a variety of blight-resistant potatoes. Torbitt’s method—selecting the few plants that survived blight-infected fields and using them as parents for future seed—represented a direct, applied use of Darwin’s principle of selection, which Darwin repeatedly recognized and endorsed. Convinced of both its scientific soundness and humanitarian importance, Darwin cautiously lobbied senior government officials in London for public funding and supplemented these efforts with his own personal financial support for Torbitt’s project.
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