To William Thiselton-Dyer   8 October 1895

8/10/95

Hurriedly this morning, dear Dr Dyer, I wrote some few lines to you in time for registration to accompany the leaf from this finance-years Budget, containing the item of this years service in my branch.¹ The Clerk here has pointed out that one of the Herbariam-Assistance is only to be kept til a vacancy occurs in an other branch of the public service. The whole expenses for the Herbarium, so far as the Parliamentary vote is concerned will only be £88 - I already pointed out three years ago and more than once subsequently that I spend considerable more than half my own income for the service and as I am alone in the world I can do so. We all here are expected to make sacrifices and aid the colony during the period of depression. I do so cheerfully. Thus I keep 3 Juniors for my branch of the service (Office and Herbarium and Museum) at my own expense, pay the extensive foreign postage also for Canada, India, S. Africa, with which we have no postal reciprocity), provide 7 Rooms for Office-work, all station[er]y, all Museum-Material. all freights, Messengers fares (a heavy item in itself as the Herbarium is some distance from the city) all library expenses, all repairs &c at Office-building with [taxes.] When the colony, now on the path of financial improvement has recovered so as to bring the revenue within the expenditure, I may be sure, that I shall get some means for some of these. “Contingencies” - as they are called here. But it stands to reason, that I cannot provide a draftsman and a lithographer also. The continuation of the larger works of lithography will be resumed, so soon as means are available for it; I am however bringing out a work for the Agriculture Department on noxious weeds with colored illustrations at a plan similar to that of the Thistles[.]² The 9th Edition of the Select plants³ you received lately (enlarged). The work for the Suppl vol of the Flora Australiensis proceeds and so some minor litterary work⁴ The correspondence in a winterless clime with the vast rural demands needs in each of the later years 5000-6000 letters or their equivalent.

Regardfully

your

Ferd. von Mueller⁵

I continue to make also heroic efforts to increase library and herbarium.

Paid collectors I cannot keep

Botanists are trained at our University. When I pass away, the position I hold will be abolished and the Herbarium likely pass over to the Melbourne University.

Special Professorships of Bot are sure to be made later from Australian University Students also in this colony with the advantage of local experience.