Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here, see Bendigo advertiser, 26 August 1895, p. 3 (B95.08.07). A draft on which the addressee is shown as ‘J. R. Pescott Esqr Secr of the Board of Viticulture’ exists as RB MSS M76, Library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. This is dated ‘17/8/95’ and is said to be ‘in reply to your communication of yesterday‘. Pescott’s letter has not been found. The published text is introduced as follows: 'The Bendigo Vine and Fruitgrowers Association recently wrote to the Board of Viticulture, urging that steps be taken to import phylloxera resisting vines from America. Several members of the board were opposed to the introduction of cuttings, and the matter was referred to Baron von Mueller for his opinion. The Baron has now replied as follows:'

The meeting where the decision was taken to write to the Minister is reported in detail in the Bendigo independent , 12 August 1895, p. 2. See also Victoria Parliamentary Debates, Assembly, vol. 78, pp. 1536, 2935, 3249, 3721 and 3273.

Bendigio’s local Phyllloxera Board, at a meeting on 7 September 1895, discussed M's views and formallty rejected them, stating that supplying resistant rootstock from seeds was too slow and that cuttings could be disinfected (Bendigo Independent, 9 September 1895, p. 3). This view was stongly rejected by the Board of Viticulture; see Australasian, 19 October 1895, p. 728. M’s views were widely reported in other newspapers at the time.

I regard it in the highest degree inadvisable to import any cuttings of American vines into the colony for the following reasons: — 1. The phylloxera vastatrix is naturally distributed throughout all the regions of America in which phylloxera-resisting vines are grown, and though only to an insignificant extent existing on these plants the dreaded insect would still be a source of danger where any portion of the living plants became introduced. 2. The vine phylloxera in its terrestrial wanderings may be present on any branches of American species of vitio

2

Typesetters' error for vitis?

either in their wild or cultivated state although the insect may be unobservable under ordinary outward inspection. 3. Cuttings of American vines may conceal under the bark not only the unfertilized insect, but also nymphs or the eggs from which the winged fertile insect speedily emanates, and the latter would carry at once the phylloxera to distances some perhaps far away, and new centres of infection would thereby be caused. 4. No cuttings of any American vines on the subsequent root of which the grafting of the ordinary European vine is to be effected can be obtained from any part of Europe free of phylloxera vastatrix; hence the danger exists that by mere casual contact the insect might be carried onward to tracts of country distant from the limited and isolated tract of country which unfortunately became invaded, and new starting points of the insect would be reached. Even if cuttings were intended for infected localities, it would be utterly impossible to guard against any subsequent chances of such cuttings reaching other places. No known method exists of disinfecting imported cuttings; indeed it would be as dangerous to import cuttings of American vines as rooted plants of European. On the principles enumerated it would, in my opinion, be best to forbid the bringing of vine cuttings of any kind from any country to any part of Australia, otherwise the phylloxera may unsuspectedly be brought from places where its existence is incipient but where as yet its presence may have escaped observation. For these reasons the only safe method to get the phylloxera-proof American vines can be by obtaining seeds well cleaned,

3

M was concerned that unless the seeds were well washed and certified clean, Phylloxera could be imported with the insects living on the juice that stuck the seeds together; see M to G. von Beck, August 1896 (in this edition as 96-08-00g).

with a view of raising seedlings in order to obtain stock for grafting, although this may retard for a short while the intended formation or renewal of vine plantations. The growth of seedlings for obtaining stock to graft on can of course be expedited by some forcing powers, which need only be moderate. With an aim to provide in new localities, or in places in Victoria not reached by the phylloxera, the safest means of meeting any future danger I procured on my own impulse, during the last five years, a moderate supply of seeds, freshly collected last season, of such American species of vines, and also their hybrids as were ascertained in France to be the most powerful in resisting the phylloxera, and these seeds were widely distributed through Victoria and its vicinity. In 1891 (the northern autumn) I obtained, on behalf of the Victorian Agricultural department, large quantities of such seeds, both from France and North America, so that seedlings would now be extensively available from which the requisite stock for grafting may soon be obtained.