Document information
Physical location:
RSA/B/1, letter abstract book, Archives, Royal Society of Tasmania, University of Tasmania, Hobart. 60.11.16Preferred Citation:
James Agnew to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1860-11-16. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1860-9/1860/60-11-16-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026
1
Letter not found; item is an abstract only, of a letter dated 16 November 1860.
2
Included in B61.14.03. The report of the Society's misleadingly titled 'Committee on the indigenous fibrous plants of the colony suitable for paper making', includes M's letter to the Private Secretary to the Governor, M to O. Timins, 22 October 1860, followed by a 'postscript' that was not in that letter. The request from the Imperial Government is included in the report and refers to 'the
extreme want felt by the manufacturing interest of Great Britain of raw material for
the production of textile fabrics' that 'has induced an application to the Committee of the General Association for the
Australian Colonies for the purpose of discovering the existence (if any) of some
fibrous product in the Australian Continent which might tend to remove the difficulty,
and at the same time prove a sufficiently valuable article of commerce to ensure its
bemg successfidly and profitably cultivated'.
The request, and the comment that M had prepared a report in response, was included
in a report of the 29 October meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria, published in
Hobart Town advertiser, 5 November 1860, p. 2.
3
No reference to M's distrbuting Whie Mulberry seeds has been found before the date of this letter.