To Ellwood Cooper   7 August 1883

71/8/83

 

It was my intention, dear Capt Cooper, to write you a long letter by this mail, and send your Lady also the desired ferns; but I have been so much harrassed for many weeks past with extra duties (Calcutta Exhibition2 &c) beyond heavy routine-work, that I cannot do for you by this mail all that I wish to do for you.

Meanwhile I send you some seeds, which will add to the plants of ornament and leading interest in your garden. I found your large supply of your edition of my lectures &c3 most useful for the maintenance of my literary interchanges. If you will let me know, at what price I could purchase still some more copies, I would make a remittance to you, but I could not think of accepting any more gratuitously.

I have distributed your valuable Essay on Olive-Culture4 in Australia very extensively.

With regardful remembrance your

Ferd. von Mueller.

1
7 over 2.
2
International Exhibition, Calcutta, 1883-4.
3
Cooper (1876). There are two editions of this work with identical title pages, one of 237 pages, the other of 621. The essays reprinted by Cooper can be found in B76.07.04-B76.07.07 and B76.13.11–B76.13.19.
4
Probably Cooper (1882), of which there is a copy in the library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. The pamphlet is mentioned in Weekly times (Melbourne), 10 March 1883, p. 2; South Australian weekly chronicle (Adelaide), 3 March 1883, p. 14; and Mercury (Hobart), 26 May 1883, p. 1.

Please cite as “FVM-83-08-07,” 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/83-08-07