Melbourne, Victoria
December 2 1874
Consul Oakley:— It was my intention, dear Consul, to write to you already some days ago, but various unusual arrangements have added recently to my departmental work so that I had not much leisure indeed. I am not quite certain whether I sent you the last publication of the Acclimatization Society, which contains notes on many eucalyptii.2 Any how the copy will likely prove useful. The New Zealand Government have undertaken to reprint the former parts in a rearranged whole with this.3 If this is done, I shall be happy to forward some copies to the Hawaiian Government. His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs is right when alluding to the eucalyptus as rapidly devastating moist places. Hence along the watercourses which supply the Hawaiian city other kinds of trees should be grown. The Arensia,4 the Australian Wattle Araria,5 has proved the best for condensing vapors in bare rocky grounds and retaining it.6 Experiments with this, with elms and oaks and a variety of other trees might be made in these experiments. I will be happy to aid as far as Australian species are available for such purpose. I will again send eucalyptus seeds for transmission by next mail, but they would be particularly recommendable for raising hardwood timber quickly in woodless districts of the Hawaiian Empire.
If it is pleasing to you I will from time to time send you publications and seeds such as may be useful to the country whose interests you here so jealously are watching.
With regardful remembrance,
(Signed.) Ferd. von Mueller
Araria
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Concerning Australian trees', Hawaiian gazette, 27 January 1875, p. 2 (B75.01.01). The article is a dispatch from George Oakley, Hawaiian Consul in Melbourne, to the Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Oakley forwarded a package of seeds of Eucalyptus and 'other suitable trees', a report of the proceedings of the Zoological and Acclimatisation Society of Victoria containing 'much valuable information respecting the nature and advantages of the eucalyptus varieties', and a 'letter of the Baron von Mueller respecting the same, which will be found of great interest'. Oakley had previously sent seeds of ten species of Eucalyptus 'by the kindness of' M; see Pacific commercial advertiser (Honolulu), 24 October 1874, p. 3.
B74.13.06; Eucalyptus species are treated on pp. 64-8.
See G. Cooper to M, 6 October 1874 (in this edition as 74-10-06b). The New Zealand edition did not eventuate, the MS supplied by M being judged not to be in a state that the Government Printer could use: see notes to M to G. Cooper, 3 November 1874. The first consolidated edition was B76.12.06.
Not identified. Typesetter’s error?
Typesetter's error for Acacia?
In a letter to the editor, Pacific commercial advertiser, 3 April 1875, p. 3, a correspondent wrote defending the use of Eucalyptus, and commented
'as far as botanical science is concerned the Baron may perhaps stand at the top of the ladder, for all I know, but when he speaks of the Eucalyptus trees, I am loath to say that he has studied their habits and peculiarities to very little purpose. A man may have the nomenclature of the worlds botany at his finger ends and be ignorant about the peculiarities of one species.'
He went on to relate his own experience of growing Eucalyptus for eight years. He did not deny that Eucalyptus would dry wet soil, but argued that planting them would increase the ground cover and prevent the loss of water by run-off, provided that they were not planted in the bottom of the valley.
Please cite as “FVM-74-12-02a,” 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