To Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, K. C. M. G., etc., etc.,
Government Botanist of Victoria, Australia.
My Dear Baron Mueller:
It is with feelings of real pleasure that I inscribe to you the results of my humble labors, as Editor, Compiler, and Translator of this Catalogue of European, and a few American Vines. The work by Viscount Villa Maior, on the Vines of Portugal came into my hands only after Heyne's Catalogue was in print.1
A friendship, begun long years ago, and continued without interruption through many vicissitudes in private and public life, which I have ever esteemed both a happiness and an honor to myself, causes me now, when I reflect on the untiring and successful labors of your whole life for the public good, a sense of regret that the offering I am able to consecrate to your name is but a trifle.
Pray accept along with it the assurance of my undiminished regard and affection.
JOHN I. BLEASDALE, D. D.
San Francisco, California, 4th May, 1882.
Although the State Library of New South Wales catalogues Heyne (1869), there is some doubt that it was published. The reference here to 'after Heyne's catalogue was in print' probably refers to the edited serialization of the work by Bleasdale in issues of the Pacific rural press from 18 December 1880, p. 395. In the introduction to the first instalment, Bleasdale, who was by this time living in California, asserts that Heyne's catalogue 'was never published as a book'. A 'Note' towards the end of Bleasdale's book lists the grape varieties grown in the port-wine districts of Portugal, drawn from Villa Maior (1867), vol. 1. Bleasdale also included several pages of notes of his own on the Portuguese grape varieties.
Item is a printed dedication in Bleasdale (1881). Though the title page of this work gives the publication date as 1881, the date of the dedication here transcribed shows that this cannot be correct.
Please cite as “FVM-82-05-04b,” 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