FIBRES FEOM PLANTS, 



INDIGENOUS AND INTEODUCED, 

 Eligible for Industrial Culture and Experiment in Victoria* 



Br William R. Guilfoyle, F.L.S., etc.. 



Director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. 



That the colouy of Victoria possesses special advantages, and, 

 no less, offers special facilities for the cultivation of a very wide 

 range of plants indeed, cannot be denied. Blessed witli every 

 variety of soil, climate, and natural configuration, and, generally 

 speaking, with a fairly liberal water supply, plants of all kinds, 

 except perhaps those of the tropical and arctic regions, may be 

 fairly grown within its boundary. It is to be regretted that, with 

 the undoubtedly splendid opportunities which beneficent nature 

 has showered on this colony wirh so lavish a hand, in the form of 

 various kinds of soil and characters of climate, so little has been 

 done in the way of taking practical advantage of those opportuni- 

 ties. This deficiency arises from the fact, perhaps, that we as a 

 nation sprang into existence liaviog almost all things ready 

 fashioned to our hands. From the finest broadcloth to the 

 coarsest sacking, from the heaviest cable to the most delicate 

 thread, from the strongest pasteboard to the thinnest paper, all 

 were at our command and easy of acquisition ; and therefore, 

 probably, we have not troubled ourselves, as we might have done 

 under other circumstances, about their jirodnction. 



In the earlier ages of the world, men had at first to find the 

 wherewithal to satisfy the natural cravings of hunger, and, having 

 done that, being neither protected with v/ool nor fur nor hair like 

 the beasts, nor with feathers like the birds, to cast about for 

 something to protect them from the inclemency of the weather. 

 Necessity was, indeed, the mother of invention, and the earliest 

 Biblical records show us that oven our first parents sewed to them- 

 selves clothing of leaves, a sufficient internal proof that they 

 must have discovered, at least, the filamentary properties of 

 certain plants, while, laler still, the ancient Egyptians must be 

 credited with having utilized the fibre of the flax plant for 



" Being the substance of a recent lecture at the Chamber of Rural Industries, Melbcurne. 



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