Botanic Garden
Melbourne, 29/4/73
Sir
In reply to your communication of this day1 I have the honor to inform you briefly of the occupation of the various employees and of the details of the other items of the estimates, in reference to which you desire explanation, and about which I had already the honor to confer with you on the 20th inst.
1, Clerk and Accountant at 9/ (313 days) £140 17/—
This officer keeps the books and accounts of the whole establishment, aids in the correspondence and in all office work, and is fully occupied by these duties. Every other botanic garden on the whole globe has an officer of this kind, and if he is not called a clerk, some functionary — performing the duties of clerk — is expressly kept for the purpose. If any spare time for him at all exists, which is rarely the case, the clerk is then engaged in clerical duties on the museum material.
2, Travelling Collector at 10/ per diem 313 days £156. 10/—
At this rate an experienced person was kept in most of former years, he bearing his travelling expenses out of this small income. The plants and seeds, which he collects, are partly used for the garden itself and for the museum, and partly for interchanges and supply. Every important botanic establishment has at least one collector, and large nurserymen in Europe keep even several travelling collectors.
3, Gardener for seeds department at 8/ 313 days £125: 4/—
This must be a trained person, who harvests the seeds of the Botanic Garden as they ripen at the various seasons; he carefully dries them, sorts them and supplies a share of them under the Director's orders to the nurseries of the Garden itself, prepares further the collections for interchanges, sorts and arranges the seeds that arrive and effects sowing in the outer ground. One man is barely sufficient to do justice to this important branch of the service.
4, Attendant to consignments and Messenger, also in charge of stores at 7/6d 313 days £117. 7/6
Clears sendings of plants and seeds, such as almost daily arrive either by sea or by land from numerous parts of the globe, posts and delivers letters daily, effects messages about urgent or current supply of stores &c, makes arrangements for small repairs, takes charge of stores, effects return shipments or other reciprocal sendings, and carries out any minor duties devolving on a messenger in any other department or establishment of the public service.
5, Laboratory Operator at 7/ 313 days £109. 11/—
Conducts the operations, decided on by the Director, in reference to tests of chemical constituents or industrial values of any indigenous or foreign cultivated plant, from a small fodder herb to the timber of a tree, from essential oils to soda or potash, from the strength of a fibre to the specific gravity of any important wood, from separating the constituents of wood tar to the preparation of dye stuffs, or any other kind of laboratory work as at any time the Director may decide on, and of which the routine details could not be carried out by himself. It would not always be possible to obtain an efficient operator at the above low remuneration.
6, Museum Amanuensis at 6/ 313 days £93. 18/—
A trained young man brought up in the department for the work, required to attend to the manual sorting and to the keeping in a safe state of preservation the great collections of plants, commenced by the Director 34 years ago. Even this amanuensis requires help, because he alone cannot perform the necessary duties, though they are only mechanical.
7, Incidental Expenses, including outlay for freight and small repairs £110 —
Comprise freight, the purchase of numerous small articles of daily use in the office, museum, laboratory, literary branch, supply branch, conservatories or general garden, which cannot be obtained by periodical requisitions. To this vote are also charged minor works of tradesmen, horseshoeing of the one carthorse of the garden, purchase of boxes for packing and for the nurseries, extra postage on letters coming or going, and numerous other small expenditures, which it would be tedious to enumerate and which in every similar institution are of course of daily occurrence.
8, Travelling Expenses £30:—
This small item has been provided for, as in former years, should any one of the department, (except the regular travelling collector) who would be engaged in distant unexplored parts, have to proceed for collecting to the local ranges or anywhere else, or should any other official occasion arise for any one of the establishment to travel, as in any other department.
9, Test plantation in the Ranges £120:—
As explained in several of the Director's reports to Parliament it is desirable, that in some sheltered spot in the mountains in rich soil, with access to water for irrigation, the growth of tea plants, sumach, grass cloth, Peru bark, or any other to us new industrial plants should be tested on a large scale, irrespective of wood culture or sylvan conservation.
10, Books and Instruments £80:—
It stands to reason that a scientific department for plants can just as little be without books and instruments as an observatory or any other scientific institution. A single really superior microscope would cost more than that sum, and the purchase of a very few large illustrated volumes would exhaust it.
11, Issue of Educational Collections of Dried Plants £90:—
A new item, about which however I sent an explanatory letter, dated 24/7/72, besides samples of dried plants to the Lands Office, having irrespectively had the honor to explain to you already personally the objects of this intended small special expenditure, which however might be borne by the Education Department for the benefit of the schools.
I have the honor to be
sir
Your obedient servant
Ferd. von Mueller,
Director Botanic Garden
The Honorable J. J. Casey
Minister of the Lands Department2
Letter not found, but see M to J. Casey, 19 April 1873.
On 1 May 1873, Casey asked: 'I would like to know more particularly less vague & less general. What correspondence is there: to whom: how many letters per ann. What result has there been from the travelg collector. What are the results obtnd by the Laboratory operator, where recorded. Let me have a list of the [exportations] from the Botnl Gdns for any year say 1870 and say whether that year is more or less than usual. Ask Eductn Dept if it desires to incur the expense suggested'. A note dated 3 May 1873 has been added by a clerk, 'Letters accdly [accordingly]'. Letter not found, but see reply, M to J. Casey, 4 May 1873 (in this edition as 73-05-04b).
MS written by Georg Luehmann and signed by M.
Please cite as “FVM-73-04-29,” 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