Melbourne bot Garden
8/2/73.
Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication, dated 7. inst,1 and beg in reply to inform you, that as I now learn the hon. the Ministers wish for a return of my nursery plants, I shall not fail to provide it at an early date and forward it to yourself.2
I have the honor to be,
Sir, your obedient servant
Ferd. von Mueller,
Direct. botan. Garden
The honorable Duncan Gillies, &c &c
Acting Minister of the Lands Department.3
Letter not found.
M had evidently prior to this declined to respond to a demand from the Secretary for Agriculture, Alexander Wallis, made directly to staff in the Botanic Garden; see M. to J. Casey, 6 February 1873. The promised return was enclosed with M to D. Gillies, 13 February 1873.
On 11 February 1873, the Secretary of Agriculture, A. Wallis, minuted: 'I beg to observe that unless the required list of plants is furnished on or before Thursday next, I shall be unable to draw up my report by the return of the Honble The Minister of Agriculture. The men in charge of the nurseries are quite capable to supply the required return, and could do so more expeditiously without the intervention of Baron v. Mueller.' In his report (A. Wallis to J. Casey, 20 March 1873 (in this edition as M73-03-20)), Wallis did not refer to the lists he had demanded, nor did he appear to have made any use of them in compiling the report.
Please cite as “FVM-73-02-08,” 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