WCP2889

[1]¹

Inverquharity²

16/11/07

My dear Dr. Wallace,

It gave me great pleasure to receive your letter. Of course I shall be only too glad to seek your commission without delay. There is a Dentist ^Rodway3 in Hobart who is a Botanist and son (or relation of some sort I suppose) to the Botanist Rodway who went up the Amazon, as you did, and whom perhaps you knew. I shall apply to him first, & will probably be able to get from him particulars as to soil, locality, elevation and so on of Tasmanian plants.

I will make another attempt too [2] to secure some Orchid bulbs, if I am not too late in the season, & will take care that they be properly packed this time in sound package along with the seeds. One particular orchid grown in this district, a few miles[?] of[?] & which has the sculpture (not picturer) of an acute life size, apparently guarding it stamens, I can’t make out why: as it would rather scare away than attract visiting insects. I do not understand either why our Tasmanian berries are often such bright colours, as the seeds which are bured buried not in edible pulp but dry pith. The seeds of the He oak and she-oak too, are not only provided with a wing[?] and the enclosing [3]⁴ capsule, but cotton fluff for bedding & one does not see why is [1 word illegible] should require the cotton; the wing sufficing for dispersion & the cotton inside not being free till the seed has already found its lodgement. Each tree[?] has the male & female separate; so that there is a He he oak & a She he oak and a She oak & a She She oak.

I will try too & get all the particulars I can about each plant whose seeds I send; its uses, height, quick or slow growth, longevity &c. The white and scarlet species grows (a little) on my ground — but there is also a climbing one that grows some 20 feet up the trees & hangs in festoons; but it only grows in [4] the dense forest (say of the [1 word illegible] district) and the seeds may be hard to get. I will try too to get seeds of the Bauera, the plant I told you of, which is so [1 word illegible] to get lost in, as it is like being lost in a feather bed, and the [1 word illegible] (which should rather be called Higgledy Piggledy) as it grows like cubic basket work & is frightfully difficult to get lost in, but both these grow only on the wild West Coast & may be hard to get. However, I shall try to get them. Waratah too grows only in the wilds, at considerable elevation & is a stiff, ugly tree, though it has a beautiful flower. It grow It grows no great height.

[5]⁵ I met a man in Hobart long ago who [1 word illegible] to grow native seeds with great success who said he simply buried each seed its own thickness in depth. Some of our seeds (Wattle &c) should be dropped into boiling water & left a little time (some say till it gets cold) otherwise the skin is so hard it may take years to germinate.

I am glad to hear that you keep fairly well and are still "in harness." I shall look out for the your forthcoming book on Mars.⁶ I think I have most of your books but not all.

The progress of Land Reform, so sudden — so sweeping[?] — fills me with astonishment and delight. I always suspected that it was coming on [6] "underground" much more than it should on the surface, but never expected such a sudden outflux[?] as has taken place. One of its most striking features being that it is not being forced up from below, by the Labour Party or similar [1 word illegible] as most reforms are but is being taken up, apparently spontaneously, by landlords & [1 word illegible] — C. Banner-man & W. Churchill &c -. I have several times told the Labour Party out here ? though they were more advanced than the English, the English were travelling faster (though with less noise) & would soon overtake them.

I was glad to see that ^the English [7]⁷ Labour Party rejected the hospitals[?] & [1 word illegible] Arbitration Board, militant wages & similar attempts to fix wages and [1 word illegible] by that of P[rest of word illegible] (as our L. Party are so fond of) and apparently recognise that the only but sufficient reward is to force into use withheld opportunities, when the naturally boundless field of production will be [1 word crossed out] thrown open & the work will be calling out for workers instead of the worker for work. When that happens the whole Labour question will be settled.

I am sending you a little book of mine — rather a frivolous one I know — but hope that you will accept it as a little [1 word illeg.].

Yours always | A.J. Ogilvy [signature]