On the Application of Phytology to the Industrial Purposes of Life.

A Popular Discourse,

Delivered at the Industrial Museum of Melbourne, on 3rd November, 1870,

By Ferdinand Von Mueller, C.M.G., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S.,

Comm. Ord. Santiago, Kn. of Orders of Austria, France, Prussia, Italy, Wuertemberg, Denmark, Mecklenburg, Gotha; Government Botanist for Victoria, and Director of the Botanic Gardens of Melbourne.

Called upon somewhat suddenly to choose the theme for the discourse of this evening, I made my choice unguardedly. I anticipated in my thoughts how, during the intended instructive recreation of this hour, the bearings of intimate botanic knowledge on many an industrial pursuit might readily be demonstrated by some impressive facts. But on reflection, I saw myself at once surrounded by so varied and bewildering a multitude of objects, that to do justice in a few words to my theme became a hopeless task. But while I offer this mere introductory address for a series of lectures in the phytologic section of this institution, we might learn by a rapid glance over an area of knowledge singularly wide, that only

through many successive discourses, explaining subjects in detail, the student can become aware of the importance of phytologic knowledge in its relation to the industrial purposes of life. In all zones, except the most icy, mankind depends on plants for its principal wants. For our sustenance, clothing, dwellings, or utensils; for our means of transit, whether by sea or land; indeed, for all our ordinary daily requirements, we have to draw the material largely—and often solely—from the vegetable world. The resources for all these necessities must be—it cannot be otherwise—manifold in the extreme, and singularly varied again in different climatic zones, or under otherwise modified conditions.

To render, therefore, these vegetable treasures accessible to our fullest benefit, not only locally but universally, must ever be an object of the deepest significance. Increasing requirements of the human races and augmented insight into the gifts of nature render now a days quite imperative the closest appliances of science to our resources and our daily wants.

"Omnia tellus optima ferat!" has become the motto of our Acclimatisation Society; or let me quote from Virgil:—"Non omnis fert omnia tellus, hic segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvae." Striving to unite the products of many lands, it suffices for us nowhere any longer to discriminate among these resources with merely crude notions; but it becomes necessary to fix accurately, also, as far as plants are concerned, their industrial value, trace their origin, test their adaptability, investigate their productiveness, durability, qualities; and to reduce all these inquiries to a sound basis by assigning to any species that position in the phytologic system, by which it can be recognised by any one in any part of the globe. When the wants of phytography are satisfied we have to call to aid chemistry, therapy, geology, culture, microscopic investigation, pictorial art, and other branches of knowledge, to illustrate the respective value of the species, and the degree of its importance to any particular community. But in the discussions of one evening we can do no more than to touch succinctly only on a few of those vegetable objects most promising to our own colony for introduction, or most accessible among those indigenous here; we may glance on them, also, with a view of learning how their elucidation might practically be pursued, and the knowledge thus gained be diffused. To aid in the latter aim the phytologic section in the Industrial Museum is to be established; of the requirements of this section I shall say a few passing words.

The products and educts of the vegetable world are immense; any display of them in the order of science, as intended for this museum, roust carry with it a permanency of impressive instruction which any other modes of teaching, sure to be more ephemerous, fail to convey. But these efforts at diffusing knowledge should be seconded by means not inadequate to a great object, and should be worthy of the dignity and name of this rising country. Who would not like to see the best woods of every country stored up here in instructive samples—nearly a thousand kinds alone to choose from as far as our continent is concerned? Who would not wish to have here at hand for comparison the barks, exudations, grains, drugs, as raw material? Who would not desire to have ready access to a series of oils, whether pressed or distilled, whether from indigenous or imported plants? Who would not have it within his power to compare the starches, dyes, casts of our luscious fruits, or the paper-material, tars, acids, coals of various kinds, fibres, alkaloids, and other medicinal preparations from various plants?

Why not place here a series of all the weapons and implements, traced accurately to their specific origin? From such even in many instances we have learnt, through keen observations of the first nomadic occupants of the soil, the use of many kinds of wood. All these objects, crude or prepared in the multitudinous way of their adaptations, ought to be accompanied wherever necessary by full explanatory designations, microscopic sections, and other means of elucidation; while the periodic issue of descriptive indices, detailing still more copiously the derivation, uses, preparation, and monetary value of such objects, will enable us to serve the full intentions for which this museum section has been formed.

Lectures, however valuable, demonstrations, however instructive, cannot alone form the path of extensive industrial education; most minds indeed prefer to dwell tacitly on the objects of their choice, and muse quietly about the adaptability of any of them for operations or improvements in which they may be specially interested.

How many inventions have received their first impulse from an institution such as we wish to form! Investigators, eminent in their profession, will doubtless unite here, sooner or later, to bring to bear the sum of their knowledge, earned by a lifelong toil, for giving vitality to that information which is to enter guidingly into the ordinary purposes of life. Thus, the happiness and prosperity of our fellow-men should be en- page 6 hanced and exalted, and one of the loftiest objects of our striving after truths be fulfilled.

Let us first take a glance at one of our innumerable forest glens. We see in the deep rich detritus of rocks and fallen leaves, accumulated in past centuries, some of the grandest features of the world's vegetation. Fern trees^* rise, at least exceptionally, to a height of eighty feet, higher, therefore, than any in other parts of the globe, unless in Norfolk Island. Mammoth-Eucalypts abound, having in elevation rivals only in the Californian Sequoia Wellingtonia; we may, indeed, obtain from one individual tree planks enough to freight almost a ship of the tonnage of the "Great Britain." Todea Ferns, now sought in trade, occur in these recesses, weighing, deprived of their fronds, almost a ton; and if the Xanthorrhœas do resemble, as popularly thought, our once spear-armed natives, then the Todea stems bear certainly as justly a resemblance to large black bears, as has been comically contended. The Fan Palms, ^† though only occurring in East Gipps Land, within our territory, rank among the most lofty of the globe, though also among the most hardy. All this in our latitude seems astounding—but more, it demonstrates also great riches; and I allude to it here only because I wished to show how a vegetation so prodigious points to the facilities of a natural magnificent industrial culture. The complex of vegetation is always an indicator of the soil and climate; as such alone, plants deserve close study. In this instance it reveals untold treasures, and yet without phytographic knowledge they could never be understood, nor any intelligent appreciation of them be conveyed beyond the locality.

But can this grand picture of nature not be further embellished? Might not the true Tulip tree, and the large Magnolias of the Mississippi and Himalaya, tower far over the Fern trees of these valleys, and widely overshade our arborescent

^* Alsophila Australis, R. Br.

^† Corypha (Livistona) Australis, R. Br.

page 7 Labiatae? ^* Might not the Andine Wax Palm, the Wettinias, the Gingerbread Palm, the Jubaea, the Nicau, the northern Sabals, the Date, the Chinese Fan-palms, and Rhapis flabelliformis, be associated with our Palm in a glorious picture? Or turning to still more utilitarian objects, would not the Cork tree, the Red Cedar, the Camphor tree, the Walnuts and Hickories of North America, grow in these rich, humid dales with very much greater celerity than even with all our tending in less genial spots? Could not, of 400 coniferous trees and 300 sorts of oaks, nearly every one be naturalised in these ranges, and thus deals, select tanning material, cork, pitch, turpentine, and many other products be gained far more readily there than elsewhere in Victoria, from sources rendered our own? Ought we not to test in these valleys how far the Sisso, the Sal, the Teak, may prove hardy, and as important here as our Blackwood and Eucalypts abroad? Or shall I enumerate all the ornamental woods for furniture, machinery, instruments, which from an endless array of genera and species might be chosen as introducable indeed from most lauds; many of these, perhaps, to find an asylum in our mountains before—like in St. Helena and other isolated spots—the remarkable and endemic trees are swept by man's destructive agency from the face of the globe? Shall I speak in detail of the trees which yield dyes, and many medicinal substances? If the Turkey Box tree should continue the best for the wood-engraver, it would in these valleys assume its largest dimensions. I do not hesitate in affirming that out of about 10,000 kinds of trees, which probably constitute the forests of the globe, at least 3000 would live and thrive in these mountains of ours; many of them destined to live through centuries, perhaps not a few through twice a thousand years, as great historic monuments. Within the railway fences, hitherto in this respect unused, trees might be raised as material for restoring locally the sleepers, posts, and rails, prior to their decay. The principles of physiology, the revelations of the microscope, and the results of chemical tests guide us, not only in our selection of the trees, but often teach us beforehand the causes and reasons of durability or decay.

The longevity of certain kinds of trees is marvellous. British oaks are estimated to attain an age of 2000 years. The Walnut

^* Rhododendron arboreum attains a height of 30 feet, while Rh. Falconeri rises to 50 feet, with leaves half a yard long.

page 8 tree, the Sweet Chesnut, and Black Mulberry tree, live through many centuries, if cared for. Wellingtonias are found to be 1100 years old. Even the South European Elm, which since the time of the Romans has also made Britain its home, is known to stand 600 years. Dr. Hooker regards the oldest Cedars yet existing at Mount Lebanon as 2500 years old. Historic records are extant of Orange trees having attained an age of 700 years, yet aged trees continue in full bearing under favourable circumstances; a single tree is said to have yielded in a harvest 20,000 oranges. Individual Olive trees are also supposed to have existed ever since the Christian era. The European Cypress, the British Yew, the Ginkgo, and the Kauri afford other remarkable instances of longevity.

The Date Palm gratefully bears its rich crop of fruit for 200 years. The Dragon tree of Orotava is another familiar example of extraordinary longevity. Here, in Victoria, the Native Beech and several Eucalypts are veritable patriarchs of the forests, and of a far more venerable age than is generally supposed.

So much for the lasting of some of our work, to encourage planting operations.

If Cook, who stepped with the pride of an explorer on these shores precisely a century ago, could view once more the scene of his discoveries, he would be charmed by the sight of noble cities, and the happy aspect of rural industry; but he would turn his eyes in dismay from the desolation and aridity which a merciless sacrifice of the native forests has already so sadly brought about—a sacrifice arising from an utter absence of all thoughts for the future. Ever since antiquity this work of forest destruction has gone on in every country, until sooner or later such reckless improvidence has been overtaken by a resentful Nemesis, in hindering the progress of national prosperity, and the comfort of whole communities.

After lengthened periods of toil there partially arose, but partially only, what an early guardianship might have readily retained for most countries. When I largely shared in the labours of establishing for Australian trees a reputation abroad, I certainly did also entertain a hope to awaken here likewise a universal interest in the dissemination of an almost endless number of trees from the colder and subtropic girdles of the whole globe. (Vide Phil. Inst., 1858, p. 93-109.) A few scattered trees are of no national moment. We want the massive upgrowth of the Pitch Pines, just as on the Pine barrens of the United States; we want whole forests of the page 9 Deal Pines, both cis and transatlantic; we want overall our mountains the Silver Fir, already the charm of the ancients; we want the Australian Red Cedar, scarcely any longer existing in its native haunts; we want the Yarrah tree, forest-like as in West Australia; we want the various elastic Ash trees, which are so easily raised; we want, indeed, no end of other trees, because the greater part of Victoria is ill-wooded; because our climate is hot and dry; because extensive coal layers we have not yet found. What practical bearing can all the teaching in this hall, all the display in this museum, really exercise, if finally the artizan finds himself without an adequate and inexpensive material for his work? Annually the timber of 150,000 acres is cut away in the United States to supply the want for railway sleepers alone. The annual expenditure there in wood for railway buildings and cars is .£7,600,000. In a single year the locomotives of the United States consume £11,200,000 of wood. The whole wood industries of the United States represent now an annual expenditure of one hundred millions sterling. There 400,000 artisans are engaged alone in woodwork. Here in Victoria, notwithstanding the activity of many sawmills, we imported only last year timber to the value of £270,572 for our own use. As these remarks may find publicity, I have appended further notes on timber trees, eminently desirable for massive introduction, but do not wish to exhaust by details the patience of this audience.

But it would be vain to expect that Europe and America will continue for ever to furnish for us their timber. The constantly increasing population and the augmented requirements of advancing industries will render no longer yonder woods accessible also to us before the century passes, because even in those northern countries the timber supply will then barely satisfy local wants.

An idea may be formed of forest value when we enter on some calculations of the supply of timber or other products available from one of our largest Eucalyptus trees. Suppose one of the colossal Eucalyptus amygdalina at the Black Spur was felled, and its total height ascertained to be 480 feet, its circumference towards the base of the stem 81 feet, its lower diameter to be 26 feet, and at the height of 300 feet its diameter 6 feet. Suppose only half the available wood was cut into planks of 12 inches width, we would get, in the terms of the timber trade, 426,720 superficial feet at one inch thickness, sufficient to cover 93?4 acres. The same bulk of wood page 10 cut into railway sleepers, 6 feet x 6 inches x 8 inches, would yield in number 17,780. Not less than a length of 23 miles of three-rail fencing, including the necessary posts, could be constructed. It would require a ship of about 1000 tonnage to convey the timber and additional firewood of half the tree; and 666 drayloads at 11?2 tons would thus be formed to remove half the wood. The essential oil obtainable from the foliage of the whole tree may be estimated at 31 pounds; the charcoal, suppose there was no loss of wood, 17,950 bushels; the crude vinegar, 227,269 gallons; the wood tar, 31,150 gallons; the potash, 2 tons 11 cwt. But how many centuries elapsed before undisturbed nature could build up by the subtle processes of vitality these huge and wondrous structures!

Some feelings of veneration and reverence should also be evinced towards the native vegetation, where it displays its rarest and grandest forms. It is lamentable that in all Australia scarcely a single spot has been secured^* for preserving some relics of its most ancient trees to convey to posterity an idea of the original features of our primeval forests. Though it may appear foreign to my subject, I cannot withhold also on this occasion an imploring word, more particularly when I notice land-proprietors in East Australia to hold not even sacred a single native Banyan-tree, which required centuries for building its expansive dome and its hundreds of columnar pillars; nor to allow a single Cyrtosia Orchid to continue with its stem trailing to the length of thirty feet, and to remain with its thousands of large fragrant blossoms the pride of the forest. That very Cyrtosia gives a clue to the affinity and structure of other plants, not nearer to us than Java; and its destruction, with probably that of many others which the naturalist for ever is now prevented to dissect, or the artist to delineate, or the museum custodian to preserve, will be a loss to systematic natural history, also, for ever. Again, in a spirit of Vandalism, a Fan-palm, after a hundred years' growth, is no longer allowed to raise its slender stem and lofty crown in our own forests of Gipps Land, simply because curiosity is prompted to obtain a dishful of palm cabbage at the sacrifice of a century's growth.

Let it be remembered that the uncivilised inhabitants of many a tropical country know how to respect the original, and not always restorable gifts of a bountiful providence. They will invariably climb the Palm tree to obtain its nuts or to plait its leaves; so, also, a resident in our forests might obtain from a grove of our hardy palms, if still any are left in this land of Canaan, an annual income by harvesting the seeds as one of the most costly articles of horticultural export.

Speaking of palms, let me observe that the tall Wax-palm of New Granada (Ceroxlyon andicola) extends almost to the snow line. It is needless to add, that we might grow this magnificent product of Andine vegetation in many localities of the country of our own adoption. Each stem yields annually about 25 lb. of a waxy, resinous coating, which when melted together with tallow forms an exquisite composition for candles. Chamaerops Fortunei, a Chinese Fan-palm of considerable height, is here hardy, like in South Europe; so would be, probably, the Gingerbread Palm (Hyphaene Thebaica). Of the value of some palms we may form an appreciation when we reflect, that Elais Guineensis, which at the end of this century should be productive in Queensland and North-west Australia, yields from the fleshy outer portion of its nut the commercially famed palm oil, prepared much in the manner of olive oil; the value of this African palm oil imported in 1861 into England was two millions sterling, the demand for it for soap manufacture, and railway engines and carriages, being enormous. ^* The Chilian Jubaea or Coquito Palm grows spontaneously as far south as the latitude of Swan Hill, and is rich in a melliginous sap. ^† A Date palm planted now would still be in full bearing 200 years hence.

When hopeful illusion steps beyond the stern realities of the day, it cannot suppress a desire that enlightened statesmanship will always wisely foresee the absolute requirements of future generations. The colonist who lives in enjoyment of his property near the ranges and sees a flourishing family growing up around him, asks ominously what will be the aspect of these forests at the end of the century, if the present work of demolition continues to go on? He feels that though the forests not solely bring us the rain, through forests only a comparatively arid country can have the full advantage of

^* The import of Palm Oil into Britain during 1868 was nearly a million cwt. (900,059 cwt.)

^† Each tree yields 90 gallons of sap at a time, used for the preparation of palm-honey.

page 12 its showers, as bitter experience has taught generation after generation since Julius Cæsar's time. The colonist reflects with apprehension, that while no year nor day when passed into eternity can be regained, no provision whatever is made for the coming population, in whose welfare, perhaps as the head of a family, and perhaps even bearing political responsibility, he is interested. He would gladly co-operate in the labours of a local forest board, just like members of road boards and shire councils enter cheerfully on the special duties allotted to their administration. His local experience would dictate the rules under which in each district the timber and other products of the forest could be most lucratively utilised without desolation for the future; and he would be best able to judge, and to seek advice how the yield of the forest could be advantageously maintained, and its riches methodically be increased. All this will weigh more heavily on his mind when he is cognisant that even in Middle Europe, in countries so well provided with coals, and of a much cooler clime than ours, the extent of the forests is kept scrupulously intact, and their regular yield remains secured from year to year and from century to century. He would rest satisfied if only the trifling revenue of the forests could be applied by him and his neighbours to an inexpensive restoration of the woods consumed. He would delight in seeing the leading foreign timber trees disseminated with our own Red Gum tree, Red Cedars, Yarrahs, or Black woods, not by hundreds but in time to come by millions, well aware that the next generations may either censure reproachfully the shortcomings of their ancestors, or may point gratefully to the results of an earnest and well-sustained foresight of future wants. As a first step, at least in each district a few square miles should be secured for subsequent forest nurseries in the best localities, commanding irrigation by gravitation, and ready access also, before it is too late, and all such spots are permanently alienated from the Crown.

Physical science must yet largely be called to our experimental aid before we can dispel the many crude notions in reference to the effect of forest vegetation on climate in all its details. It is thus a startling fact, as far as experiments under my guidance hitherto could elucidate the subject, that on a sunny day the leaves of our common Euealypts and Casuarinas exhale a quantity of water several times, or even many times, larger than those of the ordinary or South European Elm, English Oak, or Black Poplar; while from the foliage of our native Silver Wattle only half, or even less than half, the page 13 quantity of water is evaporated than from the Poplar or Oak. This degree of exhalation, so different in various trees, depends on the number, position, and size of their stomata, and stands in immediate correlation to the power of absorption of moisture. Besides, if the evaporation of Eucalyptus trees is so enormous during heat, and if the often horizontal roots of these trees thus render soil around them very dry, in consequence of the copious conveyance of moisture to the air, they simultaneously, by the rapidity of their evaporation in converting aqueous to gaseous liquid, or water into vapour, cause a lowering of the temperature most important in our climate during the months of extreme heat, while their capability of absorbing moisture during rain or from humid air must be commensurately great.

It is beyond the scope of this address to dwell further on facts like these; but I was anxious to demonstrate by a mere example how much we have yet to learn by patient research before we will have recognised in all its details the important part which forest vegetation plays in the great economy of nature. Concerning forest culture, I would very briefly allude to an instance showing how by the teachings of natural science and thoughtful circumspection the rewards of industrial pursuits may become surprisingly augmented. In the uplands of the Madras Presidency an ingenious method has been adopted in gathering the harvest of Cinchona bark, in recent very extensive plantations, by removing it in strips without destroying the cambium layer. Then by applying moss to the denuded part of the stem, not only is the removed portion of the bark renewed within a year to the thickness of three years' growth, but the protection of the tender bark against the influence of light and air allows nearly all the quinine and other alkaloids to remain retained in the cortical layer without decomposition, while in the ordinary three years' bark half or more of these principles is lost.

Facts like these lead us to appreciate the important bearings of the natural sciences on all branches of industry; but they warn us also to pause before we give our further consent to the unlimited and reckless demolition of our most accessible forest lauds, on the maintenance of which so many of our industries depend.

Just as it required, even under undisturbed favourable influences, centuries before our forest riches were developed to their pristine grandeur, so it will need, in the ordinary laws of nature, at least an equal lengthened period before we can see towering up again the sylvan colosses, which eminently con- page 14 tributed to the fame of the natural history of this land—if, indeed, the altered physical condition of the country will render the restoration of the trees on a grand scale possible at all.

Has science drawn in vain its isothermal girdles around the globe, or has the searching eye of the philosopher in vain penetrated geologic structure, or in vain the exploring phytographer circumscribed the forms? Well do we know what and where to choose; botanic science steps in to define the objects of our choice, which other branches of learning teach us to locate and rear.

The Tea would as thriftly luxuriate in our wooded valleys as in its native haunts at Assam, and yield a harvest far more prolific than away from the ranges. Indeed, we may well foresee that many forest slopes will be dotted in endless rows with the bushes of the Tea, precisely as our drier ridges are verdant with the vine. Erythroxylon Coco, the wondrous stimulating plant of Peru, should be raised in the mildest and most sheltered forest glens, where the stillness of the air excludes the possibility of cutting frosts. Hop, cultivated as a leading industry in Tasmania since a quarter of a century, will also take a prominent place on the brooks of our mountains. Peru Bark trees of various kinds should in spots so favoured be subjected to culture trials. How easily could any swampy depression, not otherwise readily of value, be rendered productive by allowing plants of the handsome New Zealand flax lily quietly to spread as a source for future wealth. How far the demand of material for industrial purposes may quickly exceed the supply may be strikingly exemplified by the fact, that hundreds of vessels are exclusively employed for bringing the Esparto grass (not superior to several of our most frequent sedges) from Spain to England, to augment the supply of rags for the endless increasing requirements of the paper mills. Conversion of manifold material, even sawdust, into paper is carried on to a vast extent; a multitude of samples placed here before you will help to explain how wide the scope for paper material may extend. But the factories want material, not only cheap, but readily convertible, and adapted to particular working.

In all these selections, a few glances through the microscope, and the result of a few chemical reactions taught in this hall, may at once advise the artisan in his choice.

Phytologic enquiry is further to teach us rationally the nature of maladies to which plants are subject, just as it discloses even the sources of many of the most terrific and page 15 ravaging diseases of which the human frame is the victim. The microscope, that marvellous tool for discovery, has become also the guardian of many an industry. The procesess of morbid growth, or the development and diffusion of the minute organism, between which descriptive botany knows how to discriminate, are thus traced out as the subtle and insidious causes which at times involve losses that count by hundreds of thousands in a single year, even in our yet small communities. But while the microscope discloses the form and development of the various minute organisms which cause, through the countless numbers of individuals, at times the temporary ruin of main branches of rural industry, it leaves us not helpless in our insight how to vanquish the invaders. In correctly estimating the limits of the specific forms, calling forth or concomitant with some of the saddest human maladies, phytography shares in the noble aim of alleviating human sufferings, or restoring health and prolonging vital existence.

But it comes most prominently within the scope of this industrial museum to delineate for the agricultural and forest section, in explanatory plates, the morbid processes under which crops and timber may succumb, and an industry be paralyzed or a country be verily brought to famine; it devolves on us, also, simultaneously to explain the effect of remedial agents, such as sound reasoning from inductive science suggests or confirms. To array samples of all field products which our genial clime allows us to raise is doubtless the object of an instructive institution, more particularly in a young country, to which immigration streams mainly from a colder zone; but this display of increased capabilities, and of more varied products of a mostly winterless land, may entice the inexperienced to new operations without guarding him against failures. I should even like to see tables of calculations in this museum, from which could be learnt the yield and value of any crop within a defined acreage and from a soil chemically examined; but from this I would regard inseparable a close calculation of the costs under which each particular crop can only be raised. Unfortunately, surprising data are often furnished concerning the productiveness of new plants of culture; but it is as frequently forgotten, that the large yield is as a rule dependent on an expenditure commensurately large.

Among the most powerful means for fostering phytologic knowledge for local instructive purposes, that of forming collections of the plants themselves remains one of the foremost. No school of any great pretension should be without a local page 16 collection of museum plants, nor should any mechanics' institute be without such. It serves as a means of reference most faithfully; it need not be a source of expenditure; it might be gathered as an object of recreation; it may add even to the world's knowledge. Through the transmission of numbered duplicate sets of plants to my office the accurate naming may be secured. ^* From such a normal collection in each district the inhabitant may learn to discriminate at once with exactness between the different timber trees, the grasses, the plants worthy of ornamental culture, or any others possessing industrial or cultural interest. The sawyer, as well as the trader in timber, may learn how many of the 140 Australian Eucalypts occur within his reach—how phytography designates each of them by a specific appellation acknowledged all over the globe. Phytologic inquiry, aided by collateral sciences, will disclose to him beforehand the rules for obtaining the wood at the best seasons, for selecting it for special purposes, for securing the best preservation. Phytochemistry will explain to him what average percentage of potash, oils, tar, vinegar, alcohol, tannic acid, &c., may be obtained under ordinary circumstances from each. He will understand, for instance, that the so-called Red Gum tree of Victoria, the one so famed for the durability of its wood and for the peculiar medicinal astringency of its gum resin, is widely different from the tree of that vernacular named in Western Australia; that it is wanting in Tasmania, yet that it has an extensive geographic range over the interior of our continent; and that thus the experiences gained on the products of this particular species of tree by himself or others are widely applicable elsewhere. Through collections of these kinds the thoughtful colonist may have his attention directed to vegetable objects of great value in his own locality, of the existence of which he might otherwise not readily become aware. New trades may spring up, new exports may be initiated, new local factories be established. Phytographic works on Australian plants, now extant in many volumes, can readily be attached and rendered explanatory of such collections. A prize held out by the patrons of any school might stimulate the

^* Parcels of plants pressed and dried, and afterwards closely packed, can be inexpensively forwarded by post, and by the excellence of the Australian postal arrangements can be sent from distant stations of the interior, from whence botanical specimens of any kind, for ascertaining the nature and range of the species, are most acceptable; while full information on such material will at once be rendered.

page 17 juvenile gatherer of plants to increased exertions; his youthful mind will be trained to observation and reflection, and the faculties of a loftier understanding will be raised.

To the adult also, and particularly often to the invalid, new sources of enjoyment may thus be disclosed. What formerly was passed by unregarded, will have a meaning; every blade over which he stepped thoughtlessly before will have a new interest; and even what he might have admired will gain additional charm; but while penetrating wonders he never dreamt of before he ought piously to ask who called them forth?

"Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we roam,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream;
The stars shall look like worlds of love,
And this earth shall be one beautiful dream."

—Thos. Moore's Irish Melodies.

What one single plant may do for the human race is perhaps best exemplified by the Cotton plant. The Southern States of North America sent to England in 1860 nearly half a million tons of cotton (453,522 tons), by which means, in Britain alone, employment was given to about a million of people engaged in industries of this fabric, producing cotton goods to the value of £121,364,458. From Rice, which like the Cotton will mature its crop in some of the warmer parts of Victoria,^* sustenance is obtained for a greater number of human beings than from any other plant. In the greater part of the Australian continent, wherever water supply could be commanded, the Rice would luxuriate. I found it wild in Arnheim's Land in 1855. Of Sugar Cane the hardier varieties may within Victoria succeed in East Gipps Land, and other warmer spots. Great Britain imported in 1863 not less than 586,600 tons. ^†Even our young colony imported last year to the value of nearly a million sterling (£948,329). Think of the commerce in other vegetable products, such as require in different places our local fostering care in order to add still more to our resources. Of various Tobaccoes we imported into Victoria in 1869 (deducting exports) to the value of £83,788; of Wine, £84,687; of Cereals, £781,250; of Paper, £123,158. I will not enter on any remarks about Sugar-beet, on which

^* Particularly if the hardy mountain Rice of China and Japan is chosen, which requires no irrigation. The ordinary rice has been grown as far north as Lombardy.

^† The total import of Sugar into Britain was—

During 1868	626,301 tons
During 1860	605,129 tons

page 18 one of our fellow-colonists has lately compiled an excellent treatise. Of Tea, in 1865 Britain required for home consumption eighty-five millions of lbs. ^*What a prospect for tea growth in Victoria, where this bush cares neither for the scorching heat of the summer nor for the night-frosts of our lower regions; whereas in the forest glens of our country, Tasmania, and elsewhere, the Tea-bush would yield most prolific harvests. Test plantations for manifold new cultures were recommended by me years ago in one of my official reports to the Legislature; one plantation for the desert, one for subalpine regions, one for the deep valleys of the woodlands. The two latter might be in close vicinity at the Black Spur, and thus within the reach of ready traffic. The outlay in each case would be modest indeed. What an endless number of new industrial plants might thus be brought together within a few hours' drive of the city, under all the advantages of rich soil, shelter, and irrigation! What an attractive collection for the intelligent and studious might thus be permanently formed.

I will not weary this audience by giving a long array of names of any plants resisting alpine winters, such as in our snow-clad higher mountains they would have to endure. We know that the Apple will live where even the hardy Pear will succumb; both will still thrive on our alpine plateaus. The Larch, struggling in vain with the dry heat of our open lowlands, would be a tree of comparatively rapid growth near alpine heights. The Birch, in Greenland the only tree, in Italy ascending to 6000 feet, in Russia the most universal, and there yielding for famed tanning processes its valued bark, is living—to quote the forcible remarks of an elegant writer—"is living on the bleak mountain sides from which the sturdy Oak shrinks with dismay." Add to it, if you like, the Paper Birch, and a host of arctic, Andine, and other alpine trees and bushes. Disseminate the Strawberries of the countries of our childhood, naturalise the Blackberry of northern forest moors. The American Cranberry-bush (Vaccinium macrocarpum), with its large fruits, is said to have yielded on boggy meadows, such as occupy a large terrain of

^* The total import of Tea into Britain was—

During 1865	121,156,712 lbs.
During 1866	139,610,044 lbs.
During 1867	128,028,726 lbs.
During 1868	154,845,863 lbs.
During 1869	139,223,298 lbs.

page 19 the Australian Alps, fully one hundred bushels on one acre in a year, worth so many dollars. If once established, such plant would gradually spread on its own account for the benefit of future highland inhabitants. The Sugar Maple would seek these cold heights, to be tapped when the winter snow melts. For half a century it will yield its saccharine sap, equal to several pounds of sugar annually.

Let us translocate ourselves now for a moment to our desert tracts, changed as they will likely be many years hence, when the waters of the Murray River in their unceasing flow from snowy sources will be thrown over the back plains, and no longer run entirely into the ocean, unutilised for husbandry. The lagoons may then be lined, and the fertile depressions be studded, with the Date Palm; Fig trees, like in Egypt planted by the hundreds of thousands to increase and retain the rain, will then also have ameliorated here the clime; or the White Mulberry Tree will be extensively extant then instead of the Mallee scrub; not to speak of the Vine in endless variety, nor to allude to a copious culture of Cotton in those regions. To Fig trees and Mulberry trees I refer more particularly, because it must be always in the first instance the object to raise in masses those utilitarian plants which can be multiplied with the utmost ease and without special skill, locally, and which, moreover, as in this case, would resist the dry heat of our desert clime. When recommending such a culture for industrial pursuits, it is not the aim to plant by the thousand but by the million. Remember, also, that a variety of the Morus Alba occurs in Afghanistan, with a delicious fruit; and that the importation of Figs into Britain alone, from countries in climate alike to large tracts of Victoria, has been of late years about one thousand tons annually. What the Fig tree has effected for rainless tracts of Egypt is now on historic record.

I have spoken of horticultural industries as not altogether foreign to this institution—indeed, as representing a rising branch of commerce. Were I to enter on details of this subject the pages of this address might swell to a volume. But this I would mention, that in our young country the manifold facilities for rearing exotic plants in specially selected and adapted localities could only as yet receive imperfect consideration. We have, however, ample opportunities of selecting genial spots for the growth of such singular curiosities as the Flytrap plant (Dionæa Muscipula) and the Pitcher plants (Sarracenias) of the bogs and swamps of the page 20 pine barrens and savannahs of Carolina, if we proceed to moory portions of our springy forest land. There is no telling, too, whether the Pitcher plants of Khasya and China (species of Nepenthes) could not readily be grown and multiplied in similar localities, and the hardier of grand Epiphytes among the orchids, such as the subalpine Oncidium Warczewickyi) of Central America, which might readily be reared in our glens by horticultural enterprise, together with all the hardier Palms which modern taste has so well adopted for the ready decoration of dwelling rooms.

Such plants as the Beaucarnea recurvata of Mexico, with its 5000 flowers in a single panicle, and the hardier Vellozias from the bare mountain regions of Brazil, would endure our open air; while the innumerable South African heaths, Stapeliæ, the Mesembryanthema, Pelargonia, lily-like plants, and many others, once the pride of European conservatories, can with increased sea traffic now gradually be introduced as beautiful objects of trade into this country, where they need no glass protection. It leads too far to speak of the still more readily accessible numerous showy plants of South-west Australia, but among which, as a mere instance, the gorgeous Anigozanthi, the lovely Stylidia, the gay Banksiæ, and the fragrant Boronias may be mentioned.

Before leaving this topic, I may remind you that many esculent plants of foreign countries are deserving yet of test culture, and, perhaps, general adoption in this country. The Dolichos sesqnipedalis of South America is a bean, cultivated in France on account of its tender pod. The Arracha esculenta, an umbellate from the cooler mountains of Central America, yields there, for universal use, its edible root. The climbing Chocho of West India (Sechium edule) proved hardy in Madeira, and furnishes a root and fruit both palatable and wholesome. Vigna subterranea is the Earth Nut of Natal. The Tara of Tahiti (Calocasia macrorrhiza), though perfectly enduring our lowland clime, is as yet, with allied species, but little cultivated—neither the Soja of Japan (Glycine Soja), nor the Caper of the Mediterranean. The Sea-kales (Cratnbe Maritima and C. Tatarica) might be naturalised on our sandy shores.

Regarding fibres, much yet requires to be effected by capitalistsand cultivators to turn such plants as the Grasscloth shrub, which I distributed for upwards of a dozen years, to commercial importance for factories. A kind of Jute (Corchorus olitorius) succeeds as far north as the Mediterranean, and grows wild page 21 with the Sunn Hemp (Crotalaria juncea) in tropical Australia; the latter plant conies naturally almost to the boundaries of our colony. A Melbourne rope factory offers £30 for the ton of New Zealand Flax, and can consume six tons per week. Hemp, used since antiquity, produces along with its fibre the Hypnotic Churras. England imported in 1858 Hemp to the value of more than one million pounds. ^* This may suffice to indicate new resources in this direction. For Sumach our country offers in many places the precise conditions for its successful growth, as I confirmed by actual tests. Tannic substances, of which the indigenous supply is abundant and manifold, would assume still greater commercial importance by simple processes of reducing them to a concentrated form. How on any forest river might not the Filbert tree be naturalised; on precipitous places, among rocks, it would form a useful jungle, furnishing, besides its nuts, the material for fishing-rods, hoops, charcoal crayons, and other purposes. From a single forest at Barcelona 60,000 bushels are obtained in a year. (For these and many other data brought before you in this lecture you may refer further, most conveniently, to a posthumous work of the great Professor Lindley, Treasury of Botany, edited by Mr. Th. Moore, with the aid of able contributors.) Even the Loquat would attain in our forest glens the size of a fair, or even large tree.

Osiers and other willows used for basket work, for charcoal, or for the preparation of salicine, might line any river banks, quite as much for the sake of shade and consolidation of the soil as for their direct utilitarian properties. In the forest ranges any dense line of Willows and Poplars will help to check the spread of the dreadful conflagrations in which so much of the best timber is lost, and through which the temperature of the country is for days heightened to an intolerable degree far beyond the scenes of devastation, while injuries are inflicted far and wide to the labours in the garden or the field. In the most arid deserts the medicinal Aloes might readily be established, to yield by a simple process the drug of commerce. Gourds of half a hundredweight have been obtained in Victoria, and show what the plants of the Melon tribe might do here, like in South Africa, for eligible spots in the desert land. Among the trees for those arid tracts, the glorious Grevillea robusta, with its innumerable trusses of fiery

^* The import of Hemp and Jute into Britain during 1868 was 3,281,268 cwt.; during 1869, 3,551,838 cwt. The undressed Hemp imported in 1868 was valued at £2,022,419.

page 22 red and its splendid wood for staves, is only one of the very many desirable; just as in the oases the Carob tree will live without water uninjured, because its deeply-penetrating roots render it fit to resist any drought. But it may be said that much that I instance is well known and well recorded—so, doubtless, it is, in the abstract—but variety requires to be distinguished from variety, species from species, and their geography, internal structure, and components need carefully be set forth, before any industry relating to plants can be raised on sound ground in proper localities, and be brought to its best fruitfulness.

Even a pond, a streamlet—how, with intelligent foresight, may it be utilised and rendered lucrative to industry! The "Water Nuts, ^* naturally distributed through large tracts of Europe and Asia, afford at Cashmere alone for five months in the year a nutritious and palatable article of food to 30,000 people. Can the Menyanthes not be made a native here—one of the loveliest of water plants, one of the best of tonics? The true Bamboo, which I first proved hardy here, used for no end of purposes by the ingenious Chinese—can we not plant it here at each dwelling, at each stream, a grateful yielder to industrial wants, not requiring itself any care, an object destined to embellish whole landscapes? An Arundinaria Bamboo from Nepal (A. falcata) proved very tall and quite hardy even in Britain; and yet taller is the Mississippi Arundinaria (A. macrosperma)—indeed, rivalling in height the gigantic Chinese or Indian Bamboo.

Imagine how there might arise on the bold rocky declivities of the Grampians the colossal columns of the Cereus gigan-teus of the extra-tropic Colorado regions—huge candelabras of vegetable structure, which would pierce the roof of our museum hall if planted on the floor, and would be as expansive in width as the pedestal of the monument consecrated to our unfortunate explorers. Picture to yourselves an Echino-cactus Visnago of New Mexico, lodged in the wide chasm of our Pyrenees, one of these monsters weighing a ton, and expanding into a length of nine feet, with a diameter of three feet. Think of such plants mingled with the Canarian Dragon tree, one of which is supposed to haw lived from our Redeemer's time to this age, because four centuries effected on these Giant Lilies but little change. Welwitchia here, like in rainless Damaralaud, might grow in our desert sands as one of the

^* Several species of Trapa.

page 23 most wonderful of plants, its only pair of leaves being cotyle-donous and lasting well-nigh through a century. Or associate in your ideas with these one of the medicinal Tree Aloes of Namaqua, or one of the Poison Euphorbias, never requiring pluvial showers (Euphorbia grandidens), some as high as a good-sized two-storeyed dwelling-house; transfer to them also Cereus senilis, thirty feet high, which with all its attempts to look venerable only succeeds to be grotesque; add to these extraordinary forms such Lily trees as the Fourcroya longæva, with a stem of forty feet and an inflorescence of thirty feet, whereas Agave Americana, Agave Mexicana and allied species, while they quietly pass through the comparatively short space of time allotted to their existence, weave in the beautiful internal economy of their huge leaves the threads, which are to yield the tenacious Pita cords, so much in quest for the rope bridges of Central America.

Some of the Echinocacti extend as far south as Buenos Ayres and Mendoza, and would introduce into many arid tracts of Victoria, together with the almost numberless succulents of South Africa, a great ornamental attraction, which horticultural enterprise might turn to lucrative account; just like our native showy plants will yet become objects of far higher commercial importance, than hitherto has been attached to them. The columns of Cereus Peruvianus rise sometimes to half a hundred feet; some Cacteæ are in reality the vegetable fountains of the desert. Such plants as Echinocactus platy-ceras, with its 50,000 thorns and setæ, should be cultivated in our open grounds for horticultural trade, whereas the Cochineal Cacti (Opuntia Tuna, O. coccinellifera and a few other species), might well be still further distributed here, in order that food may be available for the Cochineal insects when other circumstances in Australia will become favourable for the local production of this costly dye.

These are a lew of the many instances which might be adduced to demonstrate how the landscape pictures of Victoria might be embellished in another century, and new means of gain be obtained from additional manifold resources.

But while your thoughts are carried to other zones and distant lands, let us not lose sight of the reason for which we assembled, namely, to deal with utilitarian objects and the application of science thereon. All organic structure, however, whether giants or pygmies, whether showy or inconspicuous, have their allotted functions to fulfil in native, are destined to contribute to our wants, are endowed with their page 24 special properties, are heralding the greatness of the Creator. But here in this hall I would like to see displayed by pictorial art the most majestic forms in nature, were it only to delineate for the studious the physiognomy of foreign lands, irrespective of any known industrial value of the objects thus sketched. The painter's art in choosing from nature does impress us most lastingly with the value and grandeur of its treasures. Each plant, as it were, has a history of discovery of its own; who would not like to trace it? And this again brings us face to face with those who carried before us the torch of scientific inquiry into the dark recesses of mystery, and shed a flood of light on perhaps long-concealed magnificence and beauty. The youth, aroused to the sublime feeling of wishing at least to follow great men in independent researches, may be animated, if in a hall like this each division were ornamented with the portraits of the foremost of those discoverers, who through ages advanced knowledge to the standard of the present day.

"Deeds of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

"Though oft depressed and lonely,
Our fears are laid aside,
If we remember only
Such also lived and died.

"Learn from the grand old masters,
Or from the bard sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridor of time."

Longfellow.

Discovery proceeds step by step. Commenced by original thinkers, enlarged by sedulous experimenters, fostered by the thoughtful portion of the community, and by any administration of high views, it is utilised by well-directed enterprise, and marches onward steadily in its progress. Gutten-berg and his collaborators gave us the printing art, which has done more to enlighten the world than all other mechanisms taken together; and though four centuries have altered much in the speed and cost of producing prints, they have not materially changed the forms of this glorious art, as the beautifully-decorated pages of the earliest printed bibles testify. Thus we have reason to be yet daily grateful for this invaluable gain from the genius of days long passed.

Thoughtless criticism is but too often impatient of success, and demands results premature and unreasonable. Incompetent and perversive censure may even carry the sway of public opinion—misleading, and misled; and still worse organised tactics may apply themselves, for sinister purposes of their own, to disturb the quiet work of the discoverer, mar the results of his labours, or paralyse the vitality of research, not understanding, or not wishing to understand, its direction or its object.

And yet, should we have no faith in science, whether it reveals to us the minutest organisms in a perfection unalterable, ^* or the grandest doctrines of truth, sure ever to bear on human happiness and the peace of our soul; should we have no faith in science, whether it unravels the metallic treasures of the depth and the coals of the forests of bygone ages, or by eternal laws permits us to trace the orbits of endless celestial worlds through space; no faith, if it allows us through spectroscopic marvels to count unerringly the billions of oscillations of each ray of dispersed light within a second; or if it discloses the chemism of distant worlds, and therewith an applicability of research, both tellurial and sidereal, ever endless and inexhaustible. Science, as the exponent of Godlike laws, draws us in deepest veneration to the power divine. That is true science!

"As into tints of sevenfold ray
Breaks soft the silvery shimmering white;
As fade the sevenfold tints away,
And all the rainbow melts in light;
So from the Iris sportive call
Each magic tint the eye to chain,
And now let truth unite them all,
And light its single stream regain."

—Bulwer Lytton, from Schillcr.

If a series of experiments with colouring principles from coal tar and bituminous substances led to the invention of

^* As an instance of the marvellous complexity, and yet exquisite perfection of the minutest creatures, the organ of vision in insects may be adduced. Most careful observers have ascertained that the eyes of very many insects are compound, contain numerous eyelets; each of these provided with a distinct cornea, lens, iris, pupil, and a whole nervous apparatus. In our despised ordinary house fly may be counted about 4000 of these most subtle instruments of vision; in some dragon flies about 12,000. Reliable microscopists have counted even 17,355 in a kind of butterfly, while in the beetle genus mordella these most delicate eyelets have been found to rise to the almost incredible number of 25,088.—(From Th. Rym. Jones.)

page 26 the brilliant anilin colours, and brought about an almost total change in many dye processes, how many new wonders may not be disclosed to technology by the rapid strides of organic chemistry? As is well-known, three or four chemic elements are only engaged in forming numberless organic compounds, by a slight increase or decrease or rearrangement of the atomic molecules, constructing, for instance, from these three or four elements, ever present and ever attainable, the deadly Hydrocyanic Acid, the terrible Atropin, or the dreadful Aconitin at one time; or at another time, harmless Ammonia combinations universally used for culinary and other purposes of daily life. Our wood-tars, we may remember, are left as yet almost unexamined as regards their chemic constituents. Few of our timbers have been chemically analysed; few other of our vegetable products are as yet accurately tested. What an endless expanse for exploration does organic chemistry thus offer us! We are called on, among a thousand things, to trace out similar mutual relation and counteraction of such extremely powerful plants as the Belladonna and Calabar Bean. Here medicine, chemistry, and phytology, go hand in hand. How, again, is any analysis of the chemic constituents of any plant, for cultural purposes or otherwise, to be applied, unless we command a language of phytographic expressions, which will name with never-failing precision the object before us, and give to its elucidation value and stability?

We may speak chemically of potash plants, lime plants, and so forth; we may wish to define thereby the direction of certain industrial pursuits, and we may safely thereby foretell what plants can be raised profitably on any particular soil or with the use of any particular manure; but how is this knowledge to be fixed without exact phytologic information, or how is the knowledge to be applied, if we are to trust to vernacular names, perplexing even within the area of a small colony, and useless, as a rule, beyond it? Colonial Box trees by dozens, yet all distinct, and utterly unlike Turkey Box; colonial Myrtle, without the remotest resemblance to the poet's myrtle; colonial Oaks, analogous to those Indian trees, which as Gasuarinai were distinguished so graphically by Rumpf already 200 years ago, but without a trace of similarity to any real oak—afford instances of our confused and ludicrous vernacular appellations. A total change is demanded, resting on the rational observations and deductions which science already has gained for us. Assuredly, with any claims to ordinary intelligence, we ought to banish such designations, not only page 27 from museum collections, but also from the dictionary of the artisan.

One of the genera of Mushrooms, certainly the largest of them (Agaricus), contains alone about a thousand species well distinguished from each other, a good many even occurring in this country. For the practical purposes of common life it becomes an object to distinguish the many wholesome from the multitude of deleterious kinds, or the circumstances under which the harmless sorts may become hurtful. In France the cultivation of mushrooms in underground caverns has become a branch of industry not altogether unimportant. How, in other instances, is many a culinary vegetable to be distinguished from the poison herb without the microscope of the phytographer being applied to dissections, or without the language of science recording the characters? How many a life, lost through a child's playfulness, or through the unacquaintance of the adult even with the most ordinary objects of knowledge among plants, might have been saved, even in these times of higher education, if phytologic knowledge was more universal? The species of fungi, which can be converted into pleasant, nutritious food are far more numerous than popularly supposed, but for extending industries in this direction botanic science must assume the guardianship. In a technologic hall like this, I should like to see instructive portraits also of all the edible and noxious plants, likely to come within the colonist's reach.

Among about one thousand kinds of Fig-trees which, (so Mons. Alphonse de Candolle tells me) through Alons. Bureau's present writings for the Prodromus, are ascertained to exist, only one yields the fig of our table, only one forms the famed Sycamore fig, planted along so many roads of the Orient; only one constitutes our own Ficus macrophylla, destined, in its unsurpassed magnificence, to overshade here our pathways. How are these thousands of species of Ficus, all distinct in appearance, in character, and in uses—how are they to be recognised, unless a diagnosis of each becomes carefully elaborated and recorded, headed by a specific name?

Without descriptive botany, all safe discrimination becomes futile. To bear our share in building up an universal system of specific delimitation of all plants is a task well worthy of the patronage of an intelligent and high-minded people. The physician is thereby guided to draw safe comparisons in reference to the action of herbs and roots which he wishes to prescribe, as available from native resources. Thus it was through Victorian researches, that not only the close affinity of page 28 Goodeniaceæ to the order of Gentianeæ was brought to light, but simultaneously a host of herbs and shrubs of the former order gained for therapeutic uses. When once it was ascertained that the so-called Myrtletree of our forest moors was a true Beech, the artisan then also found offered to him a timber of great similarity to that of the beech forests of his British home.

Of the grass genus Panicum, we know the world possesses, according to a recent botanic disquisition, about 850 species, all more or less nutritive. But one only of these is the famous Coapin of Angola (Panicum spectabile), one the Warree (Panicum miliaceum), one the Bhadlee (Panicum pilosum), one the Derran (P. frumentaceum). We might dispense perhaps, as far as these few are concerned, with their scientific appellations, though not even the mere task of naming has become therewith easier, and no information whatsoever of their characteristics has been gained. But if we wish to refer to any of the many hundred other species of Panicum, in what way are we to express ourselves if even their vernacular names could be collected from at least a dozen of languages, and impressed on any one's memory? They are, as may readily be imagined, very different indeed in their special nutritiveness, degree of endurance, and length of life. Of 140 species of Bromus, only one is the Prairie Grass, which attained already a great celebrity as a pasture grass naturalised in this country; and it is only one other Bromus, among the many nutritious kinds, which carries the palm as the most fattening fodder grass for cold, marshy pastures, and gradually, through depasturing, surpresses completely all other grasses and weeds; so it is proved on the marshlands of Oldenburg. This Bromus (B. secalinus), as far as I am cognisant, is nowhere as yet economically cultivated in Victoria.

Nothing would be easier than to commence disseminating a number of the best grasses in addition to those already here; for instance, the Canadian Rice Grass (Hydropyrum esculentum) for our swamp lands. Their nutritive value must be tested by analysis and other experiments, just like that of the Saltbushes of the Murray Flats. Hence ample scope for the exertions of science also in this direction.

In Cotta's celebrated publishing establishment at Stuttgart, a most useful work is issued by my friend, Prof. Noerdlinger, on the structure of timber of various kinds, illustrated by microscopic sections of the wood itself; for the latter fascicles I furnished some material from this colony. The work should be accessible in this museum to all interested in wood work.

How much we have yet to learn of the value of our forest products is instanced when we now know from Spanish physicians to combat ague with Eucalyptus leaves, or when Count Maillard de Marafy, from experiments instituted this year in Egypt, announced to us that Eucalyptus leaves can be used as a substitute for sumach. (Egypte Agricole, 1870.)

Already in the earlier part of this lecture I spoke of the Peru Bark Plants; but the Cinchonas are not all of the same kind. Some endure a lower degree of temperature than others, some are richer in quinine, others richer in cinchonine, others in quinoidine; and this again is much subject to fluctuations under different effects of climate and soil. Great errors may be committed, and have been committed, by adopting from among a number of species the least valuable, or one under ordinary circumstances almost devoid of alkaloid, though a representative of the genus cinchona, and not unlike the lucrative species. When calculations in India prognosticate the almost incredible annual return of 130 per cent, after four years on the original outlay for Cinchona plantation, it is supposed that the conditions for this new industrial culture are to the utmost favourable. That one of the best species did not thrive there at all in proportion to expectations, is owing, in my opinion, to geologic conditions. The cinchonas before you, reared in soil from our Fern tree gullies, I intended to have tested for the percentage of their alkaloids prior to this evening; but the timely performance of this investigation was frustrated. I think, that I have proved the hardiness or adaptability of these important plants for the warm Palm valleys of East Gipps Land, as many indigenous plants from that genial spot are quite as much, if not more, susceptible of the night frosts of our city than the Cinchonaæ, if harsh cutting winds are kept from the latter. But as yet I am unacquainted with the likely results of remunerative Cinchona cultivation within the boundaries of this colony, as far as such depends on the constituents of the soil. That inquiries of this kind are not mere chimeras, may be conceded after an explanation of this kind for the benefit of future technology. Geology, one of the brightest satellites which rotate around the sun of universal science, continues to send its lustre into the darkness which yet involves so many of the great operations in tellurian nature. Further insight into the relation of this discipline of science to vegetable physiology is certain to shed abundance of light also on many branches of applied industry. The causes why page 30 the Ironbark trees of our auriferous quartz ridges differ so materially from the conspecific tree of alluvial flats can only be explained geologically. So it is with the narrow-leaved Eucalyptus amygdalina on open stony declivities as compared with the broad-leaved Eucalyptus fissilis, which in such gigantic dimensions towers up from our deep forest valleys. But all this has an important bearing on technological exertions in manifold directions. The timber chosen by the artisan from a wrong locality may impair the soundness of a whole building; or a factory may prove not lucrative simply because it is placed on a wrong spot for the best raw material.

A thousand of other industrial purposes might yet be served by a close knowledge of plants. So the designer might choose patterns far more beautiful from the simple and ever perfect beauty of nature than he gains from distorted forms copied into much of our tapestry; thus a room, nowadays, as a rule, decorated with unmeaning, and often, as far as imitation of nature is concerned, impossible figures, might become, geographically or phytographically, quite instructive. If here the founders of territorial estates—some, perhaps, as large as the palatinates of the Middle Ages—should wish to perpetuate the custom of choosing a symbol for family arms, they, as the Highland clans adopted special plants of their native mountains for a distinguishing badge, might select as the ancestral emblem the flowers of our soil, destined, perhaps, to be traced, not without pride, by many a lineage through a hundred generations.

Precise knowledge of even the oceanic vegetation, in its almost infinite display of forms, offers not merely the most delicate objects for design, but brings before us its respective value for manure, or the importance of various herbage on which fishes will browse; while such marine weeds may as well be transferred from ocean to ocean as ova of trout have been brought from the far north to these distant southern latitudes. Who could foresee when first Iodine was accidentally discovered in seaweeds, through soda factories, or Bromine subsequently appeared as a mere substance of curiosity, what powerful therapeutic agents thereby were gained for medicine, what unique results they would render for chemical processes, of what incalculable advantages they would prove in physiological researches or microscopic tests; and how, without them, photographic art could not have depictured with unerring fidelity millions of objects, whether of landscapes or of the starry sky, whether of the beings dear to us or the relics of antiquity, whether enlarging the scope of lithography or page 31 recording the languages which the flashing of telegraphic electricity sends to a dwelling or to an empire? Even the vegetable fossils, deep buried in the earth or in the cleavage of rocks, when viewed by the light of phytology become so many letters on the pages of nature's revelation, from which we are to learn the age of strata, or may trace the sources of metallic wealth, or by which we may be guided to huge remnants of forests of bygone ages, stored up for the utilisation of this epoch, or may comprehend, as far as mortal understanding serves us, successive changes in tellurian creation.

But is there nothing higher than the search of earthly riches, and is to this all knowledge of the earth's beautiful page 32 vegetation also to be rendered subservient 1 Is there nothing loftier than to break the flowers for our gaieties or to strew them along a mirthful path? There is! They raised the noblest feelings of the poet at all ages, they spoke the purest words of attachment, they ever were the silent harbingers of love. They smilingly inspired hope anew in unmeasured sadness, and on the deathbed or at the grave they appear to link together, as symbols of ever-returning springs, the mortal world with immortality; they ever teach us some of the sublimest revelations of our eternal God.

The laurel crown of the hero was a people's highest reward of chivalrous and glorious deeds.

The myrtle, or orange wreath for bridal curls, remains the proudest gift to youthful hope.

The little blooming weed, content in a parched and dreary desert, revived the strength of many a sinking wanderer (Mungo Park); the ever unalterable beauty and harmony of floral structures preaches the truths of eternal laws in the universe—a faith that gave expression to Schiller's memorable words, as repeated by that leading British statesman, "It's not all chance the world obeys." (Gladstone.) The innocent loveliness of nature's flowers has often aroused anew the shaken spirit of the philosopher, and to these and other gifts of nature the American bard alludes, when he speaks of the great zoologist, Agassiz, of whose friendship I may well be proud.

"And whenever the way seemed so long,
Or his heart began him to fail,
She would sing a still more wondrous song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale."

And when it seems that all hopes of the weeping mother are extinguished, or even the teachings of religion may well-nigh forsake her, then the deep meaning of some of our noblest poems inspired by nature is understood, and faith in eternity once more embraced.

"And the mother gave in tear and pain
The flowers she most did love,
She knew she would find them all again
In the fields of light above."

"And with childlike credulous affection
We behold their tender bud expand,
Emblems of our own great resurrection.
Emblems of the bright and better land."