To Joseph Hooker   18 September 1884

Near Nhill,1 18/9/84

 

Your last kind letter reached me here, dear Sir Joseph, in the Mallee Scrub, to which I went, to have the benefit of the warm desert air in the spring for my health, while at the same time I endeavour, to connect my observations east of the Murray River in South Australia during 1848 and 1849 with my field-work at the Wimmera in 1854. I feel, as if I had got 30 years younger again, while greeting once more my early desert friends in their spring-garb!

It was with sorrow, that I heard of Mr Dyer’s illness. As he seems to have a good constitution and is still young, his ailing - so I hope - will be a transitory one; - but we all in the prime of life are apt to over-work ourselves “to win our spurs”. The sad tidings from Mr Bentham, affect me much. As he had however the benefit of the summer-air, he likely got safely to his own home and the comforts of his routine, though he must feel very2 lonely. I should have thought that he would have liked some young Botanist to read to him and to cheer him by his companionship. He deserved the enjoyment of his triumphs in unbroken health, and let us hope, that this falls still to his share! When meeting him, pray convey to my venerable friend, my profound sympathy!

I will continue the sending of type specimens of Australian plants of more recent discovery; but I am worried just now by demands of some influential people to bring out a dichotomous key to the Victorian flora. To do this well, will take months of spare time, and other work must be put aside, which would be far more important.

I am grateful to you, that you accorded to my genial friend Mr Eaton, some of your precious time; he has as a neighbour seen more of me, than most others even in Melbourne, knows my early struggles, my sacrifices, continued toil, though he is in our brand of knowledge a lay-man.

Professor Asa Gray urged me, to come to the British Association and then to the American one, but my worldly affairs would not admit of it, even if my health would have admitted to leave Melbourne timely for America. So I shall also not likely ever see him as I long cherished.

This part of Victoria is now in some places dreadfully infested by rabbits, against the liberation of which I spoke 20 years ago as much as against that of the sparrows.3 The sums expended in some of the N.W. Shires for the suppression of the enormous increase of the rabbits by trapping and poison applications are enormous. I advise here to use the Mongoose, which I employed in the bot Garden to ferret out the Rabbits there.

Let me hope, dear Sir Joseph, that you are quite well, so that your glorious labors may continue uninterruptedly.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller

 

I never hear of your youngest son.4

I try to get Mr Winnecke out on an other search after traces of Leichhardt

Did you read my opening adress delivered before the Vict. geogr. Soc.?5

 
1
In the Wimmera region of Vic., on the railway from Melbourne to Adelaide.
2
very is interlined in the MS.
3
M warned about the destructiveness of rabbits in M to E. FitzGibbon, 28 April 1869, 2 May 1869. M made a similar claim to have warned against the introduction of sparrows in M to J. Hooker, 18 May 1873, but no primary evidence of his doing so has been found. Sparrows were blamed in the press in 1868 for large-scale destruction of fruit. The Acclimatisation Society sought comparisons of the destruction of fruit in colonies in which there were no feral sparrows; see, fpr example, a letter from R. Schomburgk to the Society, printed in the Argus, 22 April 1868, p. 6, col. b. M is reported as being one of the ‘gentlemen of scientific acquirements’ who testified that ‘in the present instance at all events, the sparrow must be held harmless’ (Border Watch[Mt Gambier], 6 May 1868, p. 2, col. c.). See also Argus, 26 September 1868, p. 5, col. c: ‘Dr. Mueller, who had at first some misgivings as to the damage its introduction might occasion, now gives it the praise for having more than compensated any mischief it might have done by effectively clearing off all the aphis from every shrub and plant [in the Botanic Gardens] liable to its attacks’.
4
Reginald Hawthorn Hooker, born 12 January 1867 (Allan, 1867).
5
Did you ... Soc.? is written in the central margin on the back of the last folio of the MS (f. 118 of the volume). B85.13.25; see M to J. Hooker, 4 May 1884, and M to [B. Perthes], 20 April 1884.

Please cite as “FVM-84-09-18,” 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/84-09-18