Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here, see Argus, 19 April 1861, p. 5 (B61.04.04), published under the heading 'The Growth of Cotton' and introduced as follows: 'The following letter on this subject, by Dr. Mueller, was laid on the table of the Legislative Assembly last night by Mr. Brooke'. The letter was widely reprinted, including in the Star (Ballarat), 20 April 1861, p. 15 (B61.04.09), and in B61.12.03.

Melbourne Botanical and Zoological Gardens,

April 18, 1861.

Sir, —

In compliance with your request, I have the honour of submitting to you some brief observations in reference to the contemplated culture of cotton for commercial purposes in Australia.

From the well-established fact that cotton is successfully produced in favourable localities, not only of the countries within the tropical and sub-tropical zone, but also northward as far as the border of the Mediterranean sea, in South Carolina, and Northern China, it may be inferred that through a great part of the Australian continent, and more particularly along its littoral tract, the cotton plant will find a climate most favourable to its development.

Whether in the cooler temperature of Victoria the important commodity can be produced in such luxuriance as to render it available for factories remains yet to be ascertained, judging from the fact that the mean annual temperature of the vicinity of Melbourne falls considerably short of that of most cotton-growing states, and relying on the somewhat isolated observations that a number of plants of the sea island cotton grown in the Botanic Garden of Melbourne failed to produce cotton, or ripened their seed-vessels only exceptionally or imperfectly. Since, however, the northern part of our colony experiences a much warmer climate, although subject to great ranges of the temperature, and since the eastern part of Victoria, under the favour of an aërial and oceanic current from a wide tropical sea, enjoys a climate so mild that palms and several other types of tropical vegetation are observed to descend to a latitude nearly as far south as that of the city of Melbourne, we may feel justified in predicting a successful issue of any contemplated experiments to raise cotton in those more genial parts of this colony. And here I would draw special attention to the promising features which are held out for such enterprises by the basaltic plains along the Murray, and by the diluvial banks of the Lower Snowy River, the Genoa, and other eastern streams of Victoria.

In New South Wales the

gaseypium

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2

Typesetter's error for Gossypium? The correct spelling is given in B61.12.03.

has been proved to be very productive of fruit, at least as far south as Maitland; and even the mean temperature fixed for the cultivation of some varieties of the herbaceous cotton plant is almost at a par with that of Port Phillip, for it appears that the intense heat of the summer (for instance, in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama), under the favour of dew and frequent showers, is sufficient to ripen the cotton fibre in regions otherwise subject to frost during the winter.

No doubt, however, can be entertained as to the perfect suitability of both climate and soil of tropical and subtropical Australia for supplying cotton in vast quantity to the commercial world. Extensive trap-downs (occasionally at moderate distance from available shipping places) and the alluvial deposits in the vicinity of the coast, and along many rivers as well of Eastern as of Northern Australia, are equally inviting to the cultivation of the cotton plant.

Moreover, even from Arnheimsland

3

Arnhem Land, NT.

towards Central Australia, many tracts may at a distant period become available for the above purpose, as is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that I discovered there the true rice in a spontaneous state of growth, rice being usually concomitant as a cultivated plant to that of cotton.

The climate of North-Western Australia, however, would in all probability prove too oppressive during the summer months to Europeans for field labour, and it would probably be needful to give impulse to any design of establishing cotton plantations in Arnheimsland, whenever that part of Australia will be re-occupied,

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The settlement at Port Essington, on the Cobourg Peninsula, NT, had been abandoned some years earlier.

by rendering labour from other countries of the torrid zone available for the purpose.

But whilst it is pleasing to anticipate that Australia (at least as a whole) will offer to future colonists almost unbounded fields for adding the cotton as one of the most important articles to her exports and to her manufacturing resources, it remains as yet to be shown whether, at the present price of cotton, the labour in a country so extensively auriferous as ours can already be brought to bear on a competitive development of this important future source of employment, comfort, and wealth, in this part of the world. Yet it must be borne in mind that some of the juvenile and aged portion of our labouring population would in the cotton field obtain that more easy manual work which neither the ingenuity of machinery can supersede nor the task of furthering to the surface the mineral treasures of this country can readily and with equal certainty offer.

It will, therefore, be a wise measure to give, as contemplated by Government, the utmost encouragement to the establishment of cotton-fields wherever the soil and the climate appear promising, and to await meanwhile the results of experiments, which may possibly be more favourable for the practical solution of the labour question connected with the establishment of cotton plantations than has been hitherto anticipated.

The Hon. J. H. Brooke,

President of the Board of Land and Works.