20 
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
TO THE COMMISSIONERS FOR THE MELBOURNE AND 
PHILADELPHIA EXHIBITIONS. 
Gentlemen, November 1st, 1875. 
I have the honor, as you request, to furnish a descriptive Essay of the 
fibres, papers, gums, resins, dyes, woods, carpological specimens, <fcc., 
prepared and sent by me to the Melbourne Exhibition, and which you 
have been pleased to forward to Philadelphia. 
As regards the fibres, papers, and woods, it must be admitted they far 
exceed in number those which have been sent from this establishment to 
former Exhibitions. The whole of the exhibits described were prepared 
by myself and two assistants with but crude appliances at our command, 
and within eight weeks prior to the opening of the Exhibition. The 
greater portion of the necessaries forming the Laboratory which once 
belonged to this department, were transferred to another branch; thus I 
have had to make the best of the few opportunities afforded me for 
preparing in so short a time, the present collection. The fibres, some 
forty in number, were produced in a very primitive way; the branches 
or leaves of the plants being merely steeped in water, and afterwards 
combed by hand. The quality and quantity, however, of each kind thus 
prepared will, I trust, serve the purpose of testing their commercial 
value at Philadelphia. 
Many new discoveries in the way of fibre-yielding material are 
shown, not only of Victorian native products, but those of the other 
colonies acclimatised here, and of exotics also hitherto esteemed only for 
ornamental purposes in gardening. 
Had time permitted, my collection of exhibits would have been far 
greater. I would have been able to collect and test the value of many 
plants which I know exist on the borders of Gippsland, and even 
nearer to Melbourne — I mean the Macedon and Dandenong Ranges. It 
is almost needless for me to say that the colony of Victoria affords great 
facilities, both as regards soil and climate, for the cultivation of the 
valuable commodities which constitute fibre, and paper material. For 
instance, the Chinese grasscloth plant “Bcehmeria nivea,” the New 
Zealand flax, “Phormium tenax,” the “Fourcroya gigantea,” the 
“ Agaves,” the “Lagunaria Pattersoni” — Co witch tree of Norfolk Island, 
the Yuccas — aloifolia, filamentosa, and gloriosa; the Abutilons, and 
Hibiscus of China, India and America; the Sparmannia Africana, and 
a host of other foreign plants all thrive as well, and in some instances 
better, in this colony than in their native homes. 
