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75.02.00b

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to the Ballarat Farmers' Club, 1875-02 [75.02.00b]. 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/1870-9/1875/75-02-00b-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Correspondence' in a report of the meeting of the Club held on 20 February, in Ballarat star, 22 February 1875. The response to M's letter was also reported: 'On the motion of Mr M’Dowall it was decided that Baron von Mueller’s letter be acknowledged with thanks, and that the secretary write to him requesting him to fix the time when he will be prepared to deliver his lecture, as also to state the subject he intends to lecture on' (letter not found). For M's lecture on the cultivation of tea, delivered on 15 May 1875, see B75.05.01.
[From Baron von Mueller, in reply to a letter,
2
Letter not found.
expressing his readiness to deliver a lecture to the Ballarat Farmers’ Club, but some months hence, as his time will be engaged in field work till late in the autumn, for the completion of the seventh volume on Australian plants.
3
Bentham (1863-78). M was collecting in the Western District of Victoria; see M to W. Odgers, 23 March 1875.
Also stating that a lecture which is to exercise a lasting benefit should necessarily be written so as to admit of its being fully printed. This would of course require sometime; hence the postponement. He also thought it best to choose a somewhat different subject from that indicated by the club,
4
At its meeting on 16 January 1875, the club had adopted the suggestion of Mr Bacchus that M 'be requested to read a paper to the club on "Use of botany as applied to practical farming"' (Ballarat star, 18 January 1875, p. 4). The letter of invitation has not been found.
inasmuch as he had delivered an extensive discourse “On the application of phytology to the industrial purposes of life,”
5
B71.04.03.
a few years ago at the local Technological Museum, which discourse embraced largely the uses of knowledge of plants applied to farming. That lecture, together with two others also delivered by him at the Technological Museum,
6
B71.13.03, B72.07.02.
might, however, be reprinted, and further distributed over the colony as suggested in his last official report to Parliament.
7
M to R. Ramsay, August 1874 (in this edition as 74-08-00) (= B74.09.01).
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