Melbourne,
23/5/89.
T. R. Wilson Esqr,
Under-Secretary,
Melbourne.
Sir
I have the honor to inform you, that in the Argus of yesterday1 an editorial article appeared, concerning the height of Eucalypts, and as in this article is alluded to myself as having merely recorded the data given by others, I have the honor to solicit that I may be allowed to reply in the interest of my Department to the article.2
I have the honor to be,
Sir, your obedient servant
Ferd. von Mueller
On 22 May 1889, the Argus published a long article by 'Telemachus' headed 'Our tall trees shortened'. It began:
There is little doubt that among the readers of The Argus this morning many will be found with sad faces, for at length there has been accurate scientific measurement made of the great trees of the Big Bush, and the result is not as we had expected, or, perhaps, hoped.
The epoch of tall trees may be regarded as almost contemporary with the bush researches of Baron von Müeller. The Baron, riding about upon a somewhat diminutive pony, was wont to look aloft when riding through the arches of the great forest, and to imagine that he gazed right up into heaven, even before he looked beyond the topmost foliage. The Baron laboured hard, we know, and Australia now reaps a rich harvest by his labours. He has taught the world more of Australian botany than all others who have studied in that way in all our colonies. But he made a mistake about the big trees. They looked enormous to him, and he accepted the gauging of amateurs who desired to make them more enormous still. They grew in the Baron's vision in the first place, in his imagination in the second, and at length they so grew in us all, that we, as a people, were prepared to hold our own against the world, if not the universe. …'.
The article continued with reports of various people who had measured the trees of Australia and California. Two letters on the subject, dated 22 May, were also published in the Argus of 23 May, p. 6; one by W. C. Kernot, who was also mentioned in the article by 'Telemachus', and the other by 'Californian' pointing out that the Californian big trees were remarkable not for their height but for their girth. Other letters on the subject followed in May and June, including one by the photographer N. J. Caire, Argus, 4 June 1889, p. 9, who supplied the photograph that accompanied M to the Gardeners' Chronicle, May 1889 (in this edition as 89-05-00c).
The Chief Secretary, A. Deakin, granted M's request on 23 May 1889, and on the same day Wilson minuted: 'Messenger infd [informed] verbally'. See M to the Editor of the Argus, 23 May 1889.
Please cite as “FVM-89-05-23a,” 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