REPORT 
Botanic Garden, Melbourne, 
' 14tli September, 1868. 
Sir, 
In compliance with your request, I have the honor of transmitting to you a succinct general 
Report on the work more recently performed in the Botanic Garden and its scientific institutions. 
Simultaneously, I beg to point out what measures of progressive improvements might most 
advantageously occupy the attention of the establishment during the next year. 
Since the great excavations at the Garden lake, and the earthworks connected therewith, Were 
completed, it became possible, within the means available, to finish the various lines of walks, wliich 
now extend in the aggregate over 22^ miles. All of these are lined with trees, unless they pass along 
special garden land. 
A considerable extent of these walks requires, however, yet to be somewhat raised and to be 
covered with a gravel-layer, or perhaps with clayey grit, which is far more accessible, and will bind 
into a firm mass, impervious to rain. A large portion of the main drive from the City bridge to 
Anderson-street, needs yet to be macadamised, and basalt boulders might be used to mark off lastingly 
its footpaths. 
The tree lines along the walks amount altogether now to 21 miles ; also, different kinds of 
trees have recently been chosen for these avenues, to exhibit the relative merits of each. Tlie 
remaining portion of the reserve between the City bridge and the Botanic Garden has latterly also 
been planted with many additional kinds of Pines — not less than 21,000 Pines, representing very many 
species, being now grouped or scattered on the lawns. To prevent more completely a certain degree 
of monotony, which might be caused by the massive upgrowth of conifers, though many are of very 
distinct form, and though lines of deciduous trees dissect the lawns, I introduced into the incipient 
pinetum several, hundreds of New Zealand Palm-lilies (Cordyline Australis and Cord, indivisa), and 
also numerous groups of real Palms — for instance, the Gippsland Fan-Palm, the New Zealand Nika- 
Nika, the Date, the Seaforthia, the Sabal, and a few others equally hardy. Many of these Palms or 
palm-like plants have become already very conspicuous, and it may be readily foreseen that, within a 
few years, the environs of the city will assume by this measure an aspect o exotic, that a visitor 
viewing the suburban landscape will imagine himself to be within the tropic To the Palm groves 
require still- to be added in quantity the Chilian Jubsea and the equally hardy Chinese Livistonia. 
The various trees will form a nucleus for forest culture when gradually bearing seeds, and when not 
merely the protection but also the enrichment of the native forests will become an object of legislative 
enactments. The total number of trees now planted out approaches to 30,000. The Willow planta- 
tions along both the Yarra banks, from Prince s bridge to Richmond, have been renewed or completed 
this year on the municipal side of the river by the aid of the Corporation. The renewal of the 
fences since the last floods, effected at great expense by the City Council, has afforded for this purpose 
all the necessary security. Weeping Willows and various kinds of Basket Willows have been chosen 
promiscuously to combine ornament with utility. 
A dense belt of vegetation will thus guard against accidents, embellish the river, consolidate 
the banks, afford more shade, shelter the Garden against the piercing westerly winds, and replace 
permanently the fences, apt to be carried away by the floods. 
Tall Danubian Reeds, Calks, patches of Tea-tree (Melaleuca ericifolia, transferable in an 
upgrown state). Poplars, Ashes, Elms, Oaks, all of various kinds, Toi-Toi, Pampas Grass, Tamarix, 
Ampelodesmos, Wiry Muehlenbeckia, Poa ramigera, will ere long impress on the once dismal 
swamps and river banks a smiling feature. 
