5/10/68
I am afraid, dear Mr Fitzgibbon, all our Yarra-plantations on your side of the River will be destroyed. Yesterday one of my gardeners turned out twenty-one cattle from between the river bank and your uncompleted fences. I need not say that all the ploughed ground is trampled down by the cattle and all the valuable seeds sown there are lost. Besides the willows are partly injured and some of the Blue Gumtrees destroyed. If only at the uncompleted fences the extremities were shut up by railings temporarily, then the trees within would at least be thus far secure.1
Would the City Council not perhaps grant to the man, who lightens and cleans the lamps at Andersons Street and at the other end of the iron bridge one sixpence per day. My department cannot give high wages and the poor man with a young family could purchase then an additional loaf or two a day, besides deserves this little encouragement well, as he keeps the lamps good in order.2
your regardful
Ferd. von Mueller
M had been overseeing the City Council's recently completed tree planting scheme on the north bank of the Yarra from Princes Bridge to Richmond, supplying the young tress and seeds used: see M to E. FitzGibbon, 20 June 1868; M to E. FitzGibbon, 3 August 1868; and 'Improvements on the Upper Yarra Bank', Argus, 23 July 1868, p. 5.
M's letter was read at a meeting of the Melbourne City Council's Public Works Committee on 27 October 1868 (Unit 6, p. 586, VPRS 4037, Public Record Office, Victoria). The Committee's response is not known.
Please cite as “FVM-68-10-05,” 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