Melbourne
23/3/88
With this post, dear Colonel Bailey,1 I send to Lahore an impression of my Census of Australian plants so that you may see, how the various Eucalypts are regionally distributed. But the united effect of clime and soil determines the fitness of any species for each locality, so that local tests are the only safe rule for selecting the species most promising for extensive culture.2 Herewith samples of seeds of such sorts, as I have fresh available, others can come successively.
If you wrote to the Honorable the Premier of Victoria (without mentioning my name as having suggested it) you doubtless would be able to get my "iconography of Australian Acacias",3 yours being a public Department. Gov Publications of Victoria are only distributed through the Premiers Office. Best thanks for your sending of the admirable essays.4
Regardfully
your
Ferd.von Mueller
What spec. of Eucalyptus have you there growing already, and which are thriving there or elsewhere near you
Of course you have my Eucalyptography, 110 quarto plates with ample text5
Eucalyptus
i.e. Frederick Bailey (1840-1912), Inspector-General of Forests in India.
This sentence is marked with a bracket in the margin.
B87.13.04. There is a scored line in the margin against this paragraph.
There are offprints of three papers by Bailey, all from this period, in the library, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, namely F. Bailey (1887) [issued 1886], F. Bailey (1887a) and F. Bailey (1887b).
Issued in decades: B79.13.11; B80.13.14; B82.13.17; B84.04.04; B84.11.02. This sentence is a marginal note against the final paragraph before the valediction.
MS with a copy of M’s Systematic Census of Australian Plants (B83.03.04); one of M's calling cards with his coat of arms is pasted on to the title page.
Please cite as “FVM-88-03-23a,” 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