29/4/93.
By some oversight, dear Mr Gill, your kind letter of the 14 Apr.1 remained yet unanswered, and your most welcome sending of the seeds of Casuarina Decaisneana remained unacknowledged. Pray accept my best thanks for this gift, and convey my appreciation of it also to the Manager of Idracowra Station,2 to whom I will send now by post a lot of seeds of economic plants.
Your success with the Date Palm is grand! How remarkably quick you were in attaining results. In 1857 I recommended in an essay before the R.S. of Vict, in the presense of Sir Henry Barkly3 the copious raising of Dates at desert-wells, and very many years ago I supplied the Rev Mr Kempe for the Mission-Station on the Finke-River4 with Dates, from which Palms are raised now of good height.
The Pinus insignis was introduced by me in 1857 and by thousands of seedlings distributed by me already in 1859, when I had first in Australia demonstrated the remarkable rapidity of growth of this Pine. The bot Garden of Adelaide was also supplied by me in 1859 at Mr Francis5 time
Always regardfully your
Ferd von Mueller
Casuarina Decaisneana
Pinus insignis
Letter not found.
NT.
B58.05.02, p. 95, read 30 September 1857.
Hermannsburg Mission, NT.
George Francis.
MS is accompanied by an envelope: 'On Her Majesty's Service | Walter Gill Esqr FLS., FRHS Inspector of forests Adelaide | Government Botanist, Melbourne, 29/4/1893'. The front bears the frank stamp and crest of the CHIEF SECRETARY VICTORIA and a postal stamp 'MELBOURNE AP 29 93'. The back bears the postal stamp: 'G.P.O. ADELAIDE S.A. MY 1 93'.
Please cite as “FVM-93-04-29,” 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