29/7/81
It is very kind of you, dear Sir Joseph, that you intend to let me have a set of spare specimens of the additional lot of R. Brown’s plants.1 — Yesterday the Agent General's telegram arrived, conveying your answer, that Mr Dyer would oblige us by going for the three colonies to Bordeaux.2 I am glad of this, and Mr Dyer will himself officially be greatly concerned in this dreadful Phylloxera matter which is involving such endless losses, as affairs stand at present. I have the periodicals of Planchon here on the American Vines3 & try to do what I can!4 But without a garden, staff, fund or even office-building what can I do? Helpless also in this respect I am – for any experiments must be entrusted to others, on whom I cannot rely, whose interest it not is to promote or sustain my research in this or any other direction, and over whom I have no control nor power. — No, my dear Colleague — if still I can call you so —, a Gov. Botanist without a garden is an absurdity and hollow-mockery. D'nt mind me, for the little time in life, left me; but let us all as professional men uphold the rationale & dignity of the principle of our positions at the head of the great science of plants officially.
Always your
Ferd. von Mueller
Please cite as “FVM-81-07-29,” 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