From Eugene Hilgard   3 December 1895

December 3, 1895.

Baron F. von Mueller, Melbourne.

My dear Sir,

Since I wrote to you¹ in response to your letter written shortly after your 70'th anniversary,² a long siege of illness, partly personal and not yet ended, partly involving life and death in the case of my wife, now slowly convalescent,³ has kept me able only to attend, as well as possible, to the demands of my daily official work. I am now again on my feet, though yet unable to take enough of the much-needed exercise, and with no immediate prospect of definite improvement. Mine is a bowel trouble of long standing, dating from the war, 30 years ago,⁴ but as I grow older becoming less manageable — as such things will do!

I hope you receoved⁵ the papers noticing the celebration of your anniversary — one was in the "Rural Press" of S. F.,⁶ and I sent your clipping to Dr. Behr who promised to make good use of them and to write to you. But having been unable to cross the Bay for months, I have not seen him since then.

It will be a satisfaction to your know⁷ that at last there is a downright "boom" over here on the subject of your salt bushes, for the prsent⁸ notably A. Semibaccatum, of which thousands of acres have been and are being planted in the alkali districts. As you have seen from our bulletin⁹ which has reached you before this, we are distributing seed of the same amd¹⁰ also plants of your latest A. leptocarpum, of whose success we do not yet feel quite so sure. The 200 lbs. seed we gathered from our plantings at the Tulare Station will not suffice for the demand, and some seedsmen are offering the seed at a dollar an ounce! Until now most people having alkali land have tried to hide the fact, so as not to injure possible sales; now all at once we hear of them everywhere, and all accounts agree as to the success and value of the Atriplex even upon the worst of our alkali soils. One enthusiastic eidtor says this single introduction is worth to the state all the College of Agriculture has cost! We have sent seed in all directions, nort in order to see how much cold it will stand, both here and in Russia; and at the request of Vilmorin we have sent 25 lbs to them for use in Algeria and Egypt. So you see that your recommendation "zu Ehren gekommen ist"¹¹ at last, although your first favourite — A. nummularia — is still scouted by our cattle, nearly as much as our native salt bushes. Is it not curious that with the enormous extent of alkali lands west of the Rocky Mountains, there should not be a single plant that is truly acceptable to stock like your salt bushes? — And by the way: Can you tell me what are the more promising plants of "karroo" vegetation of S. Africa? it seems to me that we mivht¹² look there for additional useful plants for the alkali lands of this and other countries. SE Russia, Turkestan, Siberia and India also stand in need of them!

With the completion of our new plant house here we are entering upon wider possibilities in the way of acclimation and experiement, although for the moment our finances are disxouragingly low. Up to this time we have frequently lost our plants and plantings for want of proper space and protection; we are now trying hard to get up as full a collection as possible of the economic plants of the world. I will now also have some help from the dep't of Botany which under Prof. Greene's auspices devoted itself almost exclusively to the systematic botany of California, so that I had even to make my own determinations of any foreign plants. Prof. Setchell of Harvard, who succeeds Greene, is of a different mind and we will now be able to push the work more energetically.

I have not yet seen an announcement of the new edition of your "Select Plants",¹³ but on the strength of your statement that it was going through the press at the time you wrote, I have put it on our new annual order for books. My copy is in such constant use that I often have to hunt for it in other rooms of the department, and we shall want several copies when we know it is out.

What with my illness and the increasing work put upon me, I do not progress at all in the wirting of my book on "Soils", in which I intend to lay special stress upon the interconnection of climatic and soil conditions with vegetation, and the interpretation of the natural growth with respect to the adaptations of the soil. It may be that if I reach my sevetieth anniversary I may have it completed!¹⁴

Trusting that your own health continues good and will long so continue yet and leave you to serve both science and practice effectually as in the past, belive me

Ever sincerely yours

E. W. Hilgard

Atriplex leptocarpum

Atriplex nummularia

Atriplex semibaccatum