8 
Government reserves. Another portion is destined for experiments on the 
cultivation of those plants which may prove of economical, medicinal, or 
commercial importance. 
The large lagoon of the Garden (occupying a space of about 
eighteen acres) now offers to numerous water birds the only place of 
security in our neighborhood, whilst a multitude of land birds enliven our 
shrubberies. 
A renewed commencement has been made by Dr. Embling to 
enlarge the variety of the former by the introduction of foreign birds, 
whilst, as regards the latter, an attempt has been made to add nightingales 
to their number. 
Since my return from the North Australian Expedition an extensive 
correspondence has been opened or renewed with the administrators of various 
public gardens of Great Britain, on the European Continent, in America, 
and different Colonies, under a desire of obtaining additions to the plants 
hitherto accumulated on our ground. 
In all cases where direct orders have been furnished for transmission 
of plants from gardens abroad, I have been anxious to see in the selection 
of plants beauty combined with utility ; and when it is considered that 
under the mildness of our climate we may choose from the endless number 
of plants of the whole temperate and subtropical zone, and that even many 
from the warmest parts of the globe may he acclimatized in our latitudes, 
it will then he needless to show how wide a field is left for our progress, 
and we may trust that many of the future introductions into our Garden 
will not he without practical value to the Colony. 
I have the honor to be. 
Sir, 
Your most obedient servant, 
EERD. MUELLER, 
Director of the Botanic Garden. 
The Honorable the President of the Board of 
Land and Works, &c., &c., &c. 
By Authority : John Feukes, Government Printer, Melbourne. 
