To William Odgers   19 August 1877

Sunday

[19 August 1877]1

 

Herewith, dear Mr Odgers, I send you a letter from a Resident at Berwick,2 on whose place the Cinchona, given by me several years ago, has florished (produced flowers) through this whole winter. I think it but just, that the hon. Graham Berry should be informed, that my anticipation of Cinchonas proving hardy in the warmer and moister parts of this colony is supported by direct experiment. The locality at Berwick is however far less favorable for this culture, than the mild eastern parts of Gippsland and many other parts of our colony, known to me by personal exploration. In referring to my "select plants" you will see, that I was very cautious in my observations & recommendations.3 I write this note and send this letter, because the Cinchona culture is totally disrecommended in official documents, which found their way into the public press to my disadvantage4

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller

 

I left a large number of plants several years old in 1873 at the bot Garden. The seeds, from which they were raised, cost the colony nothing. The flowers produced at Berwick are from Cinchona Calisaya, one of the richest in Quinin.

 

Cinchona Calisaya

1
editorial addition. See G. Robinson to M, 16 August 1877, to which M refers at the beginning of this letter. The following Sunday was 19 August; this letter was registered at the Chief Secretary's Department on Monday, 20 August.
2
See G. Robinson to M, 16 August 1877.
3
B76.13.03, pp. 51-2.
4
See, for example, the commentary on W. Guilfoyle's Annual Report in the Argus, 18 August 1877, p. 9. The Leader (Melbourne) 1 September 1877, p. 8 commented on Guilfoyle's assertion that 'Cinchona is an unmitigated failure', quoting to the contrary Robinson’s letter to M, cited above. Ten years later, the Leader (2 July 1887, pp. 11-2) published a long report on the continued success of the plantings at Berwick, where the trees were producing bark yielding an acceptable quantity of alkaloid. A short summary of this report was published in the Bulletin of the Société d’Acclimatation in Paris, series 4, vol. 4, (1887), p. 717.

Please cite as “FVM-77-08-19,” 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 26 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/77-08-19