Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Cotton Supply Association', Manchester courier and Lancashire general advertiser, 1 August 1863. It is dated from the date given in the response letter, I. Watts to M, August 1863 (in this edition as 63-08-00d).

[At the weekly meeting of the Executive Committee, held on Tuesday, a very interesting letter was read from Dr. Mueller, government botanist for the colony of Victoria, enclosing an excellent sample of cotton grown from New Orleans seed, by an enterprising colonist, Mr. Wingfield, of Inglewood, who is the first person that has succeeded in bringing cotton to maturity and perfection in Victoria. The yield is at the rate of 750lb. per acre, and it is said that were the whole of the pods to open the yield would be astonishing.

2

Wingfield planted cotton on a plot 30 feet square, 'on some of that very bad land that is "fit for nothing but pastoral uses!"'; see 'Victorian productions', Farmer's journal and gardener's chronicle (Melbourne), 23 May 1863, p. 9.

The colony having thus been proved capable of growing cotton as an article of commerce, supplies of seed of the New Orleans, Sea Island, and Egyptian varieties, together with a gin,

3

See M to F. McCoy, 5 October 1865.

were placed at Dr. Mueller's disposal.]