Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here, see B69.12.01.

Melbourne Botanical Gardens,

November, 1869.

Sir,

Since several years I have urged in my writings, and by other means, the necessity for the formation of a phytologic collection to serve industrial objects; and since a very long time I entertained a hope that a special sum would be voted by the Legislature to extend the building containing my large phytographic collections, with a view of accommodating such articles of industry obtained from plants as gradually accumulated in my establishment. The successive great exhibitions abroad have absorbed many of such articles as were from time to time collected; and for the furtherance of immigration, and for the increase of the knowledge of our colonial resources, many of our vegetable exhibits now exist in public institutions in various parts of Europe. I was also anxious, ever since the great Intercolonial Exhibition

2

Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, 1866-7.

came to a close, that a portion of the Exhibition Building, or one of the by-buildings, should be exclusively devoted to an arrangement of vegetable products applied to industrial purposes, and I have had several consultations on this subject with His Honor Sir Redmond Barry, the chairman of the trustees of the Exhibition Building. I have ever declared myself personally ready to aid in the formation of such phytologic industrial collections, but felt it incumbent on me to point out that the expenditure connected therewith ought not to be thrown on the already heavily over-taxed financial resources of my establishment, but that it would need special monetary provision to form a display of articles adequate to the purposes for which they are sought and at all worthy of our rising country. I have shown that, even for the crude collection of timber and other larger vegetable substances now roughly stored at the Exhibition Building, and largely procured by myself, extensive repositories must be erected at considerable cost; that all the timber must be kept properly shaped, planed, and polished; that for the various gums, resins, dyes, fibres, medicinal substances, paper material, tar, acids, starch, oils, potash, soda, varnishes, small wood specimens for musical instruments, various implements, &c., glass cases, frames, wide glasses, &c., would have to be provided; and all this, if ever so economically carried out, should have some claim to elegance; while again, the proper labels of thousands of articles would involve labour and actual expense such as I have, with the ordinary resources of my department, not at my command, and for which undoubtedly the Technological Commissioners, or the trustees of the Exhibition Building, have, or will have, special sums available. I have, however, in readiness for delivery several frames full of paper samples, prepared partly here and partly in middle Europe; also tars, acids, wood spirit, potash, wood coals, and a variety of other vegetable products or educts, all of which, if the Honorable the Commissioner of Lands should wish it, could forthwith be placed into any locality accessible to the public, if the necessary accommodation and protection could be afforded. On all these points, and on the systematic arrangement to be adopted, I could best afford verbal information, and perhaps the Technological Commission would show me the consideration to invite me to one of their sittings, as I am not a member of their board, to explain my views more readily than it can be done in writing. It would be very desirable that the Government Botanist should have some control over such collections, and should advise on its full utilisation; and I need not give my assurance that I will gladly and cheerfully assist in this direction as far as it is possible, within reasonable limits and within the proper means at my command, and without ruin to any other branches of my department.

I have the honor of transmitting herewith two small pamphlets bearing on the subject under discussion, and which will shed some light on the special work for which the Technological Commission invokes my aid.

3

Presumably copies of some of the reports on plant products prepared by M for the Intercolonial Exhibition.

The principal agronomic collections are in the possession of the Board of Agriculture, and I respectfully submit that thus far a special communication need to be directed to that Board.

The Honorable J. M'Kean, M.L.A.,

President of the Board of Land and Works.

4

The Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, C. Hodgkinson, forwarded M's letter to the Chairman of the Technological Commission on 25 November 1869. In his accompanying remarks Hodgkinson noted that M's report had been prepared in compliance with a suggestion of the Chairman conveyed in a letter dated 16 November [letter not found] on the advisability of forming a phytological collection as a section of the projected industrial museum. See Technological Commission, Victoria. Reports and Papers (1870), p. 9. M's letter was read at the meeting of the Technological Commision held on 30 November 1869 and ordered to be printed (Leader, 4 December 1869, p. 11).