The Botanist Robert Hogg: On his currently known associations with Matthew and Darwin

The Famous Botanist Robert Hogg

 I discovered some interesting new information about the botanist Robert Hog   g and his associations with Matthew's orchards, Matthew's son Robert and later (post-1859) with Charles Darwin.

Hogg was a leading expert on apples and apple trees. Click here    to see a sample of his important publications.

I have as yet found no evidence to suggest that Darwin met or corresponded with Robert Hogg before Darwin had published his Origin of Species (the book that replicated Matthew's prior-published hypothesis - but never cited Matthew). However, information provided by Hogg is most important for purposes of verifying other examples of botanical and agricultural importance of particular trees in Matthew's orchards in the 19th century.

In 1859    Hogg wrote about Matthew's son Robert providing him with valuable advice on apple trees. Then in 1884 Hogg wrote    about an earlier visit to Matthew's orchard in 1846 and that he was shown an important fruit producing shoot one of the rare trees within it.

Google library projectAttribution

Robert Hogg - botanist - at Matthew's orchard in 1846.

The Golden Pippin Mere-Coincidence?

Is it a mere coincidence that Dariwin's notebook of books to read had in it a reference to the journal that contained a lengthy correspondence by Matthew (1829) on the subject of Matthew's apple hybridization expertise, in which Matthew wrote of his own famously unique scarlet golden pippin apple tree - most importantly grown from a pip and not a mutant fruiting branch graft onto old crab-apple tree stock - as is the usual necessity to maintain any new hybridized or 'ramifying' variety of apple fruit?

Is it then also mere-coincidence that Darwin's Zoonomia notebook - dated by Darwin 1837-38 - began on the very subject of fruit trees and had in it the famous phrase that Darwin's son, Francis, saw as the first clue that Darwin had begun then to first understand the role of mutation by natural selection in the generation of new varieties and species of all organic life?

Darwin wrote 'They die; without they change; like Golden Pippens. It is a generation of species. Like generation of individuals.'

(c) Darwin Correspondence ProjectAttribution

From Darwin's Zoonomia notebook of 1837-1838

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Nullius in Verba

Matthew was an expert on apple trees - he owned one of the best orchards in Scotland and had a published and cited international reputation as a hybridization expert and agriculturalist. He was even listed by Loudon as a botanist. Darwin was no expert on the topic of trees. Darwin even misspelled Pippins as "Pippens" and later made a simple mistake regarding what species of crab apple tree he owned. This topic - and the role of crab-apple trees- in helping Mathew and then Darwin understand the natural process of selection is discussed in-depth in my book:Nullius in Verba: Darwin''s Greatest Secret.

As said, it is not known whether Darwin associated with Hogg before Darwin published the Origin of Species (I have found nothing to suggest they met or corresponded before 1859) ,  And post-Origin Darwin published article   s in Hogg's journal 'The Cottage Gardener' (later re-named The Journal of Horticulture). And Hogg was mentioned to Darwin in later correspondence: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-6721.xml

Like Darwin (FLS), Hogg (FLS) - a Scot - studied medicine at Edinburgh. Like Darwin, he was also a member of the Linnean Society (Hogg from at least 185   3). Darwin's best friend and collaborator in the 1858 Linnean debacle - where Wallace's and Darwin's papers were read together without Wallace's consent, Joseph Hooker (FLS), was elected in 1854   . Darwin was elected to the Council of the Linnean society in 1858.    Darwin's other great friend and geological mentor Lyell (FLS) - another Scot - was elected to the Linnean society in 1819   .

Hogg was also an early Secretary    of the Royal Horticultural Society.

According to a local historic society   , Hogg had a background that reveals to us his interests were not dissimilar to Matthew's involvement with forestry, and also their respective wider family connections with nursery work:

Robert Hogg (1818 - 1897), Farmer, Fireburnmill Farm, Coldstream, was the son of Robert Hogg of the firm of Hogg & Wood of Coldstream, suppliers of forest trees and agricultural seeds. Hogg was educated at a private school in Duns and Edinburgh University. In 1836 he worked in the nursery of John Ronalds, London, and after traviling and studying in Europe he bought Brompton Nursery ( on the site of the Victoria and Albert Museum), renaming it Gray, Adams and Hogg. Hogg was the General Secretary for the International Horticultural Congress, 1866 and represented the Royal Horticultural Society at the International Exhibition, St Petersburg. He was Secretary to the RHS 1875 - 1884. He had many publications on Horticulture and Fruit.

Further research into Hogg's role in the story of Matthew, Wallace and Darwin is on-going.

References for Hogg

Hogg, R. (1859) The apple and its varieties being a history and description of the varieties of apples cultivated in the gardens and orchards of Great Britain. London. Groombridge and sons.

Hogg, R, (1884) The fruit manual : a guide to the fruits and fruit trees of Great Britain.London : Journal of Horticulture Office,

Darwin, the Hookers, Patrick Matthew and the Crab Apple Tree Connection

In 1844 Darwin and his wife Emma met William and Joseph Hooker (who were very well known to John Loudon, John Lindley, Jameson and Wallace) for an evening at Kew. Their transcribed correspondence  (see also ar Darwin Online) reveals that they discussed crab apples. Darwin would later hide behind Emma in his correspondence to Matthew. And Hooker and Darwin agreed that only naturalists with specific collecting and species classification experience such as they, excluding others such as Matthew, should be allowed to write on the subject of transmutation of species,

In Nullius (Sutton 2014) I explain the importance of crab apple trees as an explanatory analogy of differences for the difference between natural and artificially selected varities of  plants and animals and how those long selected by nature are far better able to survive in the wild than those selected by human breeding (artificial slection) interference. Being an internationally famous apple grower and breeder in the 19th century, Matthew mentions crab apple trees in this regard quite a lot in his (1831) book - On Naval Timber - which is the the first publication of the full hypothesis of macro evolution by natural selection.

Matthew (1831) was the first to write the artificial v natural selection explanatory of differences. It is so important that Wallace used it in his (1858) Ternate Paper and Darwin used it to open the very first chapter of the Origin of Species.

In Nullius, I also discuss how fruit trees were the very first thing that Darwin wrote about organic evolution in his 1837-38 private Zoonomia notebook, and how his notebook of books read reveals that pre-1858 held in his hands five publications - including one all about apples written by Matthew - citing Matthew's work on fruit breeding and trees. Darwin (1837-1838)  being no expert could not even consistently spell pippin correctly.The plodding replicator wrote:

‘Never They die, without they change; like Golden Pippens it is a generation of species like generation of individuals.’

Darwin spelled pippin correctly elsewhere in his Zoonomia notebook. Searching on the term within his notebook reveals just how important the example of elected apples was in influencing his thinking

On page 72 he wrote: 

'If species generate other species, their race is not utterly cut off; — like golden pippen, if produced by seed go on. — otherwise all die. — The fossil horse generated in S. Africa Zebra — & continued. — perished in America'

On page 220 Darwin (1837-38) writes about crab apples:

'Important. For instance take Valvata & Conus (??) which now run together; were not both genera formerly abundant.

Seed of Ribston Pippin tree go producing crab is the offspring of a male & female animal of one variety going back ? Whether this going back may not be owing to cross from other trees????'

On page 230:

'Do the seeds of Ribston Pippin & Golden Pippin &c produce real crabs, & in each case similar or mere mongrels?

It really would be worth trying to isolate some plants under glass bells & see what offspring would come from them. Ask Henslow for some plants whose seeds go back again, not a monstrous plant, but any marked variety. — Strawberry produced by seeds?? '

Matthew was world famous for owning a Golden Pippin apple tree grown from seed and Darwin (pre 1858) owned a copy of the publication containing Matthew's article on it. The famous botanist Hogg wrote about it (here).

William Lawrence hinted at organic evolution, mentioning crab apples. Therefore, it is quite possible his work would have influenced Matthew - Here.  In the same blog post, I include a reference to Erasmus Darwin (Darwin's grandfather's) interest in crab apples and Golden Pippins. This work may have influenced both Charles Darwin and Patrick Matthew, but neither cited it. I conclude my blog post on the topic that it seems - on the available evidence - that Matthew was influenced by Erasmus Darwin's observations on crab apples and grafting. 

In Nullius I reveal that there was a copy of Matthew's (1831) book in the library at Kew, but that a librarian there, searching for it at my request, informed me this valuable book was "missing" and so had been, apparently, stolen. Hence, we may never know whether it was one of the books William Hooker donated to the library pre-1858.