Director of the Botanic Gardens
Sir
I am instructed by the Committee of the Victorian Gardeners' Mutual Improvement Society to request that you will contribute towards the exhibition to be held in connection with the Society as per enclosed schedule1 on the 22d and 23d of Novr by sending plants &c in the same liberal way which you have hitherto done to the Horticultural Society.2 The committee ventures to hope that you will the more readily accord your support on this occasion as the G. M. I. Soc is not backed up by Government grants of money and large annual subscriptions but is getting up this its first show at its own cost and not with any view to rival the Horti Soc3 but from a sincere desire to promote Horticulture and to encourage a taste for Horticultural pursuits on the part of the working classes who are from the highly fashionable character which the shows of the Horti Soc. has assumed as it were excluded from enjoying the benefits and recreation to be derived at Exhibitions of Horticultural produce
I am Sir
Your obt Servant
T. McMillan
Hon Sec
Schedule not found.
The show was held at the Central Market; M contributed a 'collection of emperor Stocks' (Victorian farmers journal and gardeners chronicle, 24 November 1860, p. 18).
Horticultural Society of Victoria.
MS written into minutes of the meeting of the Victorian Gardeners' Mutual Improvement Society held on 29 October 1860. M agreed in M to T. McMillan, November 1860 (in this edition as 60-11-00).
Please cite as “FVM-60-10-00,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on