Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne bot Garden

1/10/63.

My very dear Sir,

The last Adelaide mail brought me your welcome letter of the 21. September

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Letter not found.

and the pleasing intelligence of your restoration to health. May you maintain that precious gift uninterruptedly, for life without health is well nigh deprived of all enjoyments & happiness. I am so glad also to hear of Mrs Davenports well-being & beg to be remembered to your Lady, who as such a kind benefactor to my poor sister Bertha will always be [leaving]

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liv ing ?

gratefully in my remembrance.

I am much obliged to you for your circumspect attention to my wish for Mediterranean Acorns and I have no doubt Mr Berthelemy

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Not further identified.

will redeem his promise of sending them.

As you are so kind to offer me to share in your supply of seeds, I would say, that I should gladly accept of some Pistachia Chenopodium Quinoa, Colza, Sesame, Chinese Hemp & Opium Poppy.

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These names have all been underlined, though in what appears to be a different ink from that used by M.

I have a special piece of ground set apart for the cultivation of useful plants and am anxious to have as many species in it as possible.

As regards Olives I must in candor confess, that as far as I can judge from our plants, which are of slow growth, that we have probably as yet not the best kinds introduced & I must strive to remedy this defect. I believe however that we have all the superior varieties of the White Mulberry and nothing can surpass their vigour of growth. I made it a point to distribute them largely throughout the country during the last 5 seasons and there ought to be plants now well established in every part of the colony to multiply this useful plant ad infinitum by cuttings which grow with the greatest ease.

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I believe ... greatest ease marked with a line in the margin and 'White Mulberry' written beside it, probably in the same ink as the underlining referred to in n. 4.

Mr Bonnefonts catalogue

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Jacquemet-Bonnefont's nursery at Annonay, France regularly issued catalogues, for example that listed as 'Catalogue et Prix-Courant, pour le printemps et l'automne de 1864, des graines et plantes potagères, etc., de Jacquemet-Bonnefont père et fils, à Annonay (Ardèche), et à Lyon, place Belecour' in Bulletin de la Société d' H orticulture et d' A rboriculture de la Côte-d'Or, 1 January 1864, p. 14.

will be returned to you as you desire.

We have the Tuberose & Vanilla. The latter will be a plant of commercial utility for Queensland.