Ferdinand von Mueller

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MS written by Georg Luehmann and signed by M.

Botanic Garden

Melbourne, 26/4/73

Sir

In reply to your communication of yesterday,

2

Letter not found.

just received, I solicit your permission to explain the difficulties, which necessarily will arise, if the responsible Director of the Botanic Garden should be deprived of his discretionary and executive function of dealing direct with all applications for plants flowers and seeds, as I feel sure, that the questions involved could not have been brought clearly before you.

If in future a medical gentleman should suddenly send for some fresh medicinal flowers or leaves or roots, as was hitherto frequently the case, he will have to wait under the proposed arrangement for many hours, and on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays even for days, before the requirements of his patient can be attended to by the Director, while under the existing regulations not a moment's delay did ever occur in effecting the supply to the sufferer.

If, as was formerly very often the case, a seafaring captain or a shipping agent or a merchant or a passenger affords only a few hours notice for my effecting through him a safe and gratuitous return sending abroad for my department, the opportunity of availing myself of this facility of interchanging with my correspondents will in most instances be lost.

If a farmer or horticulturist or any other person on visiting the Garden should wish to take with him a single tea plant or cork oak or sumach or any other industrial plant, or a few grains of a single kind of seed of a utilitarian plant, introduced by the Director for test culture, he will have to come again, should that be possible, before so simple an act of the Director can be carried out for the benefit of the community.

If a clergyman or a poor teacher sends in future for plants to be placed into ground belonging in reality to the state, he will have to wait, will have to incur loss of time and money, and often go home without them.

If suddenly for a public festival or a bazaar or even a coffin a few flowers should be required, they could henceforth in most cases not timely be forthcoming.

If any contributor should bring seeds or plants, and should desire, as frequently is the case, to take with him at once any seeds or plants in return, then he will be obliged in most cases to go without them, as it might be impossible for him to wait until the sanction for a mere act of reciprocity could be obtained.

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If suddenly … be obtained written in the margin.

Ever since I was Director I sought to avoid unnecessary expenditure to applicants; they are accustomed to drive up for their plants to my office, and to take them at once away with them at a minimum of cost for conveyance and at the least sacrifice of time. Though I might instance much more on this subject of new and additional difficulties before me, I have said enough to ensure for an appeal to your good feelings a fair consideration, and I now therefore beg to ask whether it would not be more advisable to effect such alterations in reference to the existing rules, as you Sir may deem expedient, but then to entrust the action under such rules to the responsible Director. In the event of any alternations being intended in the existing rules, I would crave of your goodness to show me so much consideration, as to submit for my professional opinion such intended changes, before they become law.

There is not a single Botanic Garden in the whole world, in which the status of the Director is so much lowered, as to withdraw from him the discretionary power to deal lawfully under established regulations with the supply, or to be hindered from using to the best of his professional experience the very plants or seeds which through his knowledge and toil he has brought himself into the establishment.

I feel also, Sir, that it would not be just to yourself that you, on whom the consideration of great questions of the state devolves, should have your time and attention withdrawn from the important duties of your high office by daily or even hourly disturbances arising from dealing with minor matters, devolving everywhere else on the professional heads of departments, while the position of the Director would by such arrangements become obviously more and more reduced and finally ruined altogether in the case now placed before you.

Awaiting your further instructions I have the honor to be

The Honorable the Commissioner of Lands and Survey

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M's letter was forwarded to the Secretary of Agriculture, A. Wallis.

On 1 May 1873, Casey minuted: 'Inform the Govt Botanist that the Leg Assembly approved of a memorandum by Mr Hodgkinson upon this subject whereon it was proposed & recomended that the distribution of all plants trees & seeds from the Botanical Gardens should be subject to the approval of the Minister Responsible to Parliament for the time being administering the Dept. There is nothing in the Directors communication that would justify a departure from the recomendation so approved of — even if there were not many reasons why such a rule should be adopted'.

There is a n note on the file in A. R. Wallis's hand, 'Letter accordingly 3.3.73'; letter not found.

M to J. Casey, 4 May 1873 (in this edition as 73-05-04a), again raised the question of requests for urgent supply for medical treatment.