21/12/82.1
I intended to have written you a long letter, dear Mr Dyer, but the hour of closing the mail has arrived, and amidst other work I left the writing to you, till too late. I have however yet time to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of your most valuable Report on the Phylloxera-Congress.2 I have after reading it at once forwarded it to the honor. Dr Smith,3 a member of the Ministry, who takes here a leading interest in viticulture and brought it through his parliamentary influence about, that £200004 was spent in eradicating all vines in the Geelong district, with a view of "stamping out" the horrible insect. That such expenditure and all collateral exertions are not incurred on light ground, you might imagine; and it speaks not well for Victorian intelligence and casts a slur on Australian science, when Mr Trimen and some of his entomologic friends cannot even be fully persuaded yet that the Phylloxera vastatrix exists at all in Victoria!5
The insect is so well described and illustrated, that there is no mistaking it from a mere biomorphic point of view. Irrespective of this, its ravages are so precisely alike here to its devastations in S Europe, that no one need entertain any scepticism of the Phylloxera being here in all its destructiveness; but it is a very different question, whether we can get rid of it, notwithstanding heroic efforts, even though our vine-fields are not in close contiguity, as the winged insect might alight on any other place of grape-culture, carried thither for miles by the wind.
One serious matter, seemingly not noted in Europe, was found out by us here, and first recorded by the two Phylloxera Commissioners as mentioned in my letter before you went to the Congress,6 namely that remnants of roots of Vitis vinifera, left unavoidably in the ground after the extirpation-process, did after three years still harbour phylloxera, as I have seen with my own eyes. Prof Planchon sends me regularly his periodical on the “Vignes Américaines”, and I keep up some communication with Prof Millardet also.7 In the Gardeners Chronicle I have made an appeal for fresh seeds of the safest American Vines8 and so in Meehan’s Monthly in Philadelphia.9 Our Bordeaux friend sent me a few. I had lots of the best American Vines (but sine Phylloxera) around my House in the bot Garden since 1860 for observation; but you know that lawns and florist-flowers are there now the main order of the day. We cannot get quick enough stock from cuttings for grafting, so must raise seedlings, to cope with future possible eventualities. The main-operations on affected vineyards I gave in the enlarged german edition of my select plants, which Dr Goeze brought out in 1882, and of which he, as a former Kew inmate, will doubtless have sent you a copy.10
I have at once recommended by letter to Dr Smith, that the Victorian Government should communicate with those of N.S W. & S.A., to acknowledge gratefully your kindly undertaking this mission, and to recompense you for the outlay, incurred by you.11
Your document on Phylloxera gave me the first intimation of our gracious Sovereign having nominated you to a Companionship of the Order of St Michael & St George.12 Accept my best felicitation and let me add the hope, that as you have yet a long life before you, that in the course of time you will be promoted in the order, as a reward for your zeal in advancing the interest, not only of the great Home Department, but also the advantages of the colonies.
Regardfully your
Ferd. von Mueller.
Can you oblige by sending me an other copy of your & Mr Trimens Reports.
Robert McLachlan FRS, Roland Trimen FLS and Edward A Fitch FLS were ‘appointed to consider a communication from the Colonial Office relative to the supposed occurrence of Phylloxera Vastatrix upon the Vines in the Colony of Victoria’. They reported that ‘a large mass of this evidence, both as regards the questions put to the parties examined and their answers thereto, have little or no bearing upon the subject. From the conflicting nature of the evidence, it is tolerably clear that more than one insect, or animals allied to insects, have been accused of being the actual Phylloxera. The question remains as to whether the pest actually exists in the Colony.’ They suggested that the organisms might be ‘harmless Acari(mites)’. They considered that the accompanying plates undoubtedly illustrated Phylloxera, but expressed doubts ‘whether the figures on the plates ... were taken from actual Victorian Specimens or copied from other figures in some European or American work’ and recommended that specimens of both the insect and infected vine-roots be sent to the Entomological Society, London, for examination (copy [ff. 56-60] of a report to the Council of the Entomological Society from McLachlan, Trimen and Fitch, undated; the accompanying letter transmitting the report to Thiselton-Dyer [f. 55] is dated 3 November 1881).
The archival volume also contains 1880. Victoria. Report from the Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria upon the Phylloxera vastatrix …,(ff 14-46). A letter from the Entomological Society (f. 96; signature obscured by binding) dated 11 January 1884 transmits an undated copy of a report by McLachlan and Fitch (ff 97, 98) — who state that Trimen is ‘no longer in England’— confirming that specimens sent to Kew from Melbourne in September 1883 and passed on to the Society by Joseph Hooker were indeed Phylloxera vastatrix.
Please cite as “FVM-82-12-21c,” 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 16 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/82-12-21c