pea sorts = Erbsensorten Both Bateson and Sherwood have “varieties”. Sorte is not a taxonomic term, but has its origin in commercial contexts and was used with reference to currencies, trade goods, and especially agricultural products, sometimes with pejorative connotations; see Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, online edition, s.v. “sorte” (1903). We have adopted “sort” as translation because it was used in these contexts in nineteenth-century English literature; on “pea sorts” see, e.g., John Claudius Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, 2nd ed. (London: Longman etc., 1831), p. 835–838.

seed shops = Samenhandlungen Bateson has “seedsmen”, Sherwood “seed dealers”. Handlung, in the commercial context that is clearly intended here, is difficult to translate. Especially in compound nouns like this, it usually means shop, but can also designate companies and businesses; see Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, online edition, s. v. “handlung” (1869). An order of a batch of seeds by Mendel, dated September 2, 1878, is preserved from the seed company Ernst Bernardy in the German town of Erfurt; see Heather Hasan, Mendel and the Laws of Genetics (New York: Rosen, 2005), 28.

test = Probe That Probe here means “test”, rather than “specimen” as on p. 4, s. 2, is evident from the context. As the following sentences make clear, Mendel cultivated the selected pea sorts for two years in order to test wether they actually possessed “constantly differing traits” (see p. 5, s. 5).