Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Date-palm and banana in the far north', Adelaide observer, 1 August 1896, p. 4 (B96.08.05). M's letter is prefaced by a letter from Robert Caldwell:

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir — The accompanying correspondence may be read with interest by those who wish to see a better use being made of the possibilities of the interior of our great island, notably that portion of it comprised within the limits of our political jurisdiction. Haying directed the attention of the Commissioner of Crown Lands to the desirableness of further experimenting with the date-palm and banana, I made it my business to communicate with Baron von Mueller. And that venerable authority, with a promptness that would do credit to any department of Government, and which is sadly lacking in some that could be named, almost by return of post tendered the following information, together with a copy of his "Select Sub-tropical Plants" [B95.08.04] a work that should be extensively circulated in this colony, particularly in the northern parts at the present time. Being written on the spur of the moment, it goes without saying that the Baron's statement was not intended for critical inspection, but if it will in any way further the object the writer of this letter has in view, permission to use it has been given. I therefore hand it over to you under the impression that benefit may result. —I am, Sir, &c.,

ROBERT CALDWELL.

You have such excellent sources of information on plant culture in South Australia, supported by local experience, that it is not needful for me to afford advice, however ready I would be to afford it, and how much I feel honoured by such requests as yours and your honourable colleague in Parliament there. So I send you, only the latest edition of my "Select Plants," in which you will find notes also on the date-palm and banana, and merely add that I am aware of some of the best varieties of the date palm having been introduced already some few years ago into your colony through growing plants, only some of numerous seedlings raised from ordinary dates turning out of superior value for fruit, as is the case indeed with seedlings of most other kinds of fruit plants. You have such reliable data on the temperature of all settled parts of South Australia that you can easily fix from them the climatic areas within which the two important plants under consideration could be remuneratively grown. In your dry inland region the temperature sinks during the cool season through night frosts so low over wide stretches of country as to injure the success of banana culture. Were it not for this, then on all places where in your interior regions irrigation could be applied the raising of this fruit could be carried out on a grand scale. Of course, in the littoral tracts of your Northern Territory the banana-plant has a splendid home. With the date-palm you can, however, operate everywhere in your wide dominions, if a suffciency

2

Typesetter's error?

of water can be provided, even if that should be somewhat brackish, though not every geologic formation suits it equally well. You can have date-palms at all your dams, watercourses (even those which dry up periodically), around lagoons and lakes unless the water in them should be too saline even for this noble and hardy palm. In this direction we have yet much to learn, also in all the Australian Colonies, by actual experiments. Should on any point involved in these questions still views be desired, they will be afforded with the greatest readiness, particularly so as I was in early years identified with your colony, and traversed your territory, even in the Far North

3

During the North Australian Exploring Expedition, 1855-6.

; so that I can long field experiences mostly there gained on my private resources bring to bear. My services are always for yours and other countries honorary.

4

M's practice was commented on in 'Protection for brain workers', Barrier miner, 26 October 1896, p. 2, a leading article discussing copyright protection:

Neither the philosophers nor the other people have yet been able to determine to what extent in the bulk material reward or the expectation of it stimulates action, or to what extent the one is necessary to the other. … There is, of course, the reward that is not material. The athlete of the olden time was content with popular applause and a spray of green stuff; the middle time warrior with his ladye's smile, and so on. But things have changed. The athlete reaches out for stuff of another sort; and the warrior is, happily, less of a slave to so fickle a driver. … Perhaps the scientist has longest kept himself unspotted in a world that has raised to itself a new god—or gods. Take delightful old Baron von Mueller as an example of that. A sincere expression of thanks was a week's full pay: as for his wretched salary, the beggar at the door could have it. Still, one has to walk for a day or two and examine many scientists before one finds another Von Mueller. By no means, however, let it be thought that we suggest that Baron von Mueller has done more for the world than he would probably have done if he had more of the spice of commercialism in him. To have an eye for the dollars does not necessarily mean that one loses devotion to science. Edison, of course, comes to the mind in that connection. Did he know or care nothing for money and the comforts and dainties that it commands, that marvellous man would most likely have been experimenting upon lines interesting enough to his brother-scientists, but, directly at least, of no service to the world.