Christmasday
25/12/76.
Private
Let me thank you for your friendly letter,1 rev. and enlightened friend, and for the sending of the learned essays, among which the splendid array of facts, explained in that "on the effects of forests on climate" particularly interested me.2 I have to thank you for the generous manner, in which you alluded to myself in your writing; this is a great support to me, while my once celebrated Department remains almost annihilated, and while almost all my preaching on the importance of forests culture and forest-conservancy was to deaf ears here. It is a sad spectacle in your colony to see even a Legislator publicly write against the conservation and maintenance of woods; and this seemingly one, who lost most of his heards3 in treeless runs, and who barely escaped with his life in a subsequent flood.4 It matters little, my venerable friend, whether Mr Salis gives to a downtrodden man an other stab in his ruin. As I find now late in life, that I followed a wrong plan of life, it is immaterial how much I am persecuted. But apart of myself, I cannot see why Mr S. takes the "German Professors" to task merely. Have not French, Scandinavian and American writers said as much as my countrymen have on the forest question and in the same train not to speak of your own English Mr Marsh?5 England with its coals, its combustible turf, has less felt the want of forests, as moreover its insular position in the cold-temperate zone keeps its climate moist, and as it6 numerous harbours allow ready import of timber, so long as that import may last & be possible.
Even in the Gilbert-Group,7 from whence I have just received through the Rev. Mr Whitmee the very few plants existing there, even on these minute specks of corals in the wide ocean the rain falls often not for very many month, because besides some Coconuts hardly any trees exist there.
As for the value of timber after ringing, it must be considered, that our hard woods yield not well to the saw when indurated after a protracted period; hence such wood cut after years can only be used for fuel, and that inferior to fresher woods; but how much waste all this involves on public lands. Surely everyone knows, that trees bring up from lower strata the mineral elements of nutrition particularly the phosphates of lime & potash. See, how the foliage of European forests is sought for manure! There are many grasses, which will live under trees, many mentioned in my new edition of the "industrial plants".8 The naturalisation of such grasses and (herbs) should be encouraged.
Possibly your rivers may contain as much water as before, though the Cedarbrushes are cut down; but where are the incomparable Red Cedars to come from for your nepotes? Besides there is a vast difference between water merely running down rivers & there being lost, between water soaking gradually down slopes, sending out vapor on the way, renewing rains; surely it must be apparent to anyone's understanding, that even if the Rivers are still as high, that the fall of rain must have diminished, as in the forest regions formerly only a small portion of the water run down at all to the brooks & streams. If those, who remove the trees, did really sow Luzern, Sanfoin, 9 dense nutritious perennial grasses, then the diminished rain might still be retained, but to my mind there is an enormous difference between foliage surface of evergreen trees and the grasses, parched from Christmas til Easter, when we wish most to prevent the heating of the soil & the escape of water.
I admire the youthful freshness of your mind. May providence leave that blessing to you for many years to come yet in best bodily health.
With best salutation to the new year.
Ferd. von Mueller
Cereals would give some compensation for forest trees, but the stubble is a poor concern after harvest also, so far as climate is concerned in hot & dry countries. Perhaps you have occasion to promulgate in some of your ingenious writings these views of mine. Every tree, however miserable helps to shade & cool a certain space of ground.
The two main-principles, which I have all along laid down for Australian forest-culture at the present time are
1, local forest boards,
2, Revoting of the revenue derived from forests for the maintenance and augmentation of the woods.
It would be unreasonable to blame so excellent a friend as yourself for any hostile remarks of Mr Salis, especially as you so well defended me
Clarke read his paper before the Royal Society of NSW on 1 November 1876. It was initially published in the Sydney morning herald on the following Saturday, 4 November. On 8 November an editorial in the same paperdeclared: 'The Rev. W.B. Clarke has done well once more to call attention to this subject, as Baron von Mueller has done in Melbourne. We wish that the Government and the public would give it the consideration which it deserves.'
On 13 November the Sydney morning herald published a letter from L. Fane de Salis, MLC, defending the widespread ring-barking of eucalypts by graziers — 'an improvement known by us to give value to worthless scrub land'. Clarke's reply was published on 14 November, followed by another editorial on 16 November and a further letter from de Salis on 20 November, referring to Clarke's 'doubtful commercial figures, as well as those figures by which he may prove to us, on the authority of Baron von Mueller, that man can create water'.
A further, long letter from de Salis was published in the Sydney morning herald on 15 December, vigorously criticizing Clarke and also 'German professors' who 'adept enough in their own speciality, are somewhat given to "inconclusive" theories on other topics':
Humbly and blindly acknowledging God's wisdom, we yet know that, at a late period of the creation, he placed man here as a conquering fighting animal. German professors might even quote Scripture to the effect that conquering man ought to extirpate other races of men that differ from him in language or in ideas — I won't. But I know that it is man's instinctive right and function to extirpate all interfering insects, beasts, trees, vegetables, fungi — everything opposed to man's progress — and that, acting in direct accordance with this truth — however German professors may slander the present climate of these countries — our forefathers in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland did right in cutting down the forests — AND HISTORY PROVES MY ASSERTION.
The issue of 18 December carried a brief note from Clarke, declining to reply to de Salis's 'extraordinary' communication: 'its style of argumentation and its tone render that impossible'.
Please cite as “FVM-76-12-25,” 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 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/76-12-25