Ferdinand von Mueller

Private

Christmas 1878.

By this mail, dear Sir Joseph, the Prime Minister of Victoria, the hon Graham Berry and an other member of the Victorian Legislature, Professor Pearson, M.A. Oxford, proceed to England on a politic mission. They are likely both to visit your princely establishment, and as we in our path of science have nothing to do with politics, I feel sure you will give them every attention when at Kew Gardens.

Let me again impress on you the necessity, not to say a word that could hinder the Chief Secretary in his kind intention to reconstruct my Department. He is indeed too enlightened a man, as not to see, that without a garden, staff, buildings, laboratory &c I am almost nothing !, not to speak of the fact, that my small income is entirely under existing circumstances consumed to maintain to a small extent the dignity & progress of my Departmental position and scientific work. I am sure, that you do not wish to see my position permanently humiliated & impaired.

What could I have done for Kew-Garden, during the last six years, with the excellent Gardeners, whom I had so long under me, if the 3 or 4 fold increased means had been at my command.