20 
The Baron exhibited in connexion with these observations various. 
gypsum-preparations from extensive beds of this mineral, as pre- 
pared in a Melbourne-factory from material obtained near the 
south-coast of Australia and the Murray River. As a particular 
horticultural resource, almost latent, yet replete with deep local 
interests, he regarded the methodic gathering of our most orna- 
mental plants for our own gardens, so that every Australian might 
become more intimately and extensively acquainted with the flora 
of his native land. He showed pressed dried specimens of some 
most gorgeous plants, particularly from extra-tropic Western 
Australia, which never had yet reached even any conservatory in 
Britain or elsewhere, among such plants of extraordinary beauty 
the Verticordia oeulata, which as having its flowers embellished 
with minute feathers, reminding one of those of the smallest 
humming bird. He thought that the export trade of seeds of 
ornamental plants, indigenous to this part of the world, ought to 
assume dimensions more on a mercantile scale. He spoke of 
the 300 kinds of Australian Acacias, some of which were the 
main glory of the glasshouses in the first half of this century 
much more than now, he having greeted them himself as the 
harbingers of the spring throughout the earlier years of his life 
in European gardens. 
In speaking of scenic culture here, he emphasized, how we 
were envied in the colder lands by being able to surround our 
dwellings with the grandeur of vegetation, which inspired some 
of the greatest of poets such as Byron and Goethe with rapturous 
effusions, when they beheld on a then difficult journey to Italy 
the laurel, the myrtle and the olive in their natural grandeur ; 
but he pointed out, that, to this colony was not denied the mag- 
nificence of alpine scenery with its own charming vegetation, 
which for continental Australia exists only in Victoria and New 
South Wales. This brought Baron von. Mueller to touch briefly 
on culinary garden-culture and the advantages, which our wide 
range of clime affords for it. He instanced, how the London- 
market was earliest in the season supplied with kitchen-vegetable 
and orchard-fruits from the Channel-Islands, and latest from the 
Scottish Highlands. The railways, he remarked, approached also 
here the Alps already, and we could have vegetables and fruits 
now brought to the metropolis from our sub-alpine valleys, after 
the supply from the lowlands had ceased for several weeks. 
This, he meant, was all the more significant, as the establishment 
of sub-alpine farms in our Snowy Mountains by Scotch High- 
landers, Scandinavians and Swiss would enable the prospecting 
parties of miners much more to hold out in their searches, so that 
much of auriferous country in our Alps could be far better tested, ° 
if re-provisioning, all required to be done through pack-horses now, 
could be effected from near places in our highlands, so far as 
