Joseph Maiden and the National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle Acacia Spp.*

Home , Australian nationalism, Joseph Maiden

CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2010, 21, 35–54

Joseph Maiden and the National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle Acacia spp.*

Jodi Frawley

28 Rutland Avenue, Castlecrag, NSW 2068, Australia. Email: [email protected]

During the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century wattle was circulated by botanists, botanical institutions, interested individuals, commercial seedsmen and government authorities. Wattle bark was used in the production of leather and was the subject of debate regarding its commercial development and conservation in Australia. It was also trialled in many other locations including America, New Zealand, Hawaii and Russia. In the process, South Africa became a major producer of wattle bark for a global market. At the same time wattle was also promoted as a symbol of Australian nationalism. This paper considers this movement of wattles, wattle material and wattle information by examining the career of one active agent in these botanical transfers: Joseph Maiden. In doing so it demonstrates that these seemingly different uses of the wattle overlap transnational and national spheres.

Introduction of the Eucalyptus genus, but this was not This paper explores the contributions of the only genus that provided scientific work the botanist Joseph Maiden (1859–1925) to for him. He also worked on the invasive the national and transnational circulation of prickly pear Opuntia sp., experimented with wattle. A Londoner by birth, educated in indigenous and non-indigenous grasses, general science at the University of Lon- actively promoted Australian forest flora, don (1879–1880),1 he moved toAustralia in and consistently advocated a botanical sur- 1881 believing that the warm climate would vey of New South Wales and indeed of alleviate recurring respiratory illness. His Australia. Another important genus with biographer, Lionel Gilbert, explains that, which Maiden engaged for over thirty years not intending to stay, he carried a return was Acacia, or wattle. ticket with him. Australia, however, pre- Wattle, wattle material and wattle infor- sented itself as a land of opportunity for the mation were mobilized by Maiden and emerging scientist. He was not to return to other scientists in three distinct arenas. England for nineteen years, by which time Throughout the nineteenth century, wat- he was an established botanist with a global tle bark was used in the manufacture of professional profile. leather. From the 1870s onwards, various Maiden was Curator of the Technolog- groups promoted the systematic conser- ical Museum in Sydney, 1882–1896, and vation and plantation of some species of then Government Botanist and Director of wattle for the development of a local indus- the Sydney Botanic Gardens, 1896–1924. try. This same time period saw many dif- His reputation was built through an active ferent types of Australian trees that were engagement with native and exotic flora. regarded as of economic value actively dif- He is perhaps best known for his revision fused into other settler locations, namely New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. ∗An earlier version of this essay was joint winner of Wattle seeds were sent as transnational the 2009 National Museum of Australia student essay botanical exchanges by many Australian prize in Australian environmental history. institutions, organizations and individuals.

However,Australian understandings of wat- nationalism was an important feature of tle were not confined to its economic role; European political systems well beforeAus- it was also mobilized as a symbol of nation- tralia’sfederation, it is a reasonable concep- alism. Maiden played a part in all these tual tool to use in the Australian context, domains. This article demonstrates how the even in the era before federation. Ian Tyrrell work of one colonial scientist related to argues that an essential feature of transna- these different spheres of concern for settler tionalism was reciprocity in the exchange Australia. At each stage in Maiden’s career of technologies, ideas and objects across the institutions in which he worked con- national borders.6 In this article, transna- tributed to his capacity to apply the science tionalism broadly refers to ‘multiple ties of wattles to matters of settlement. and interactions linking people or institu- An important feature of late-nineteenth- tions across the borders of nation-states’7 century botany was the exchange of infor- while highlighting the communications that mation and plants. Maiden, like Ferdinand allowed this to occur. The movement of von Mueller in Melbourne, cultivated local seeds, cuttings and scientific information collectors who sent him plant material.2 about wattle generated by Maiden linked Such people included the notable Sydney places and people in Australia to botanists botanizer Reverend William Woolls, the and botanical institutions around the globe. superintendent of the Australian Agricul- Maiden’s association with wattle began tural Co., Jess Gregson, and a surveyor at his first permanent position in Sydney, with the New South Wales Railways, at the Technological Museum in Sydney.8 Henry Deane.3 Simultaneously, Maiden Under the guidance of the chairman of its exchanged wattle material with botanic board, Professor Archibald Liversidge, the gardens—with Charles Moore in Sydney museum focused on economic aspects of and with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew life in colonial Australia. The exhibits rep- in London, but also with gardens at Cal- resented technological advance as progress cutta, Mauritius and Buitenzorg in Java.4 of civilization.9 The museum arranged the He established working exchanges with exhibition of its natural history collec- Mueller and the National Herbarium ofVic- tions under the themes of economic botany, toria, which at the time was the most impor- economic geology and economic zoology. tant botanical institution in the southern Liversidge’s vision for the Technological hemisphere.5 Maiden’s access to these net- Museum incorporated a chemical labora- works was important for gathering the plant tory within the structure of the organization, material, in the form of both herbarium thus creating a site for research. Maiden specimens and seeds, that helped shape the focused the laboratory’s work on botany, science at both the Technological Museum with a particular interest in the chemical and the Sydney Botanic Gardens. While components—kino, resins and tannin—that constructed by people, these exchange net- were available in indigenous plants. As a works were equally dependent on the avail- result of diligent laboratory investigations, ability of plants, plant material and plant Maiden was convinced he had sufficient information. evidence that these chemical components Transnational exchanges of wattle rep- could benefit the local economy. resented an important aspect of Maiden’s The museum’s natural competitor in work, at both the Technological Museum botanical research was the Sydney Botanic and the Sydney Botanic Gardens. In the Gardens. However, under Charles Moore’s period under consideration here, from the directorship, this was very specifically 1880s to the 1920s, Australia was a nation focused on taxonomic rather than economic that was ‘forming’. However, given that botany. No laboratory existed at the Sydney National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 37

Botanic Gardens, so this gave Maiden to become more elaborate as tailoring a niche in which he could nurture and technologies developed. Stitching, embroi- enhance his botanical skills. While there dery and tooling improved the marketabil- was some overlap between the museum and ity of manufactured leather in a range the Botanic Gardens—for example, both of geographical settings including Britain, had herbaria—Maiden was able to provide Europe, the Americas and parts of Asia. a complementary body of research rather Knowledge about tanning processes moved than a competitive one. Economic botany from place to place but tanners always was the field that Maiden embraced and experimented with local barks such as championed for the rest of his career. This sumach, scotino, willow and oak bark.12 work led to the publication in 1889 of The The crumbly texture of wattle bark provided Useful Native Plants ofAustralia (including the perfect additive to water in the creation Tasmania) followed by the first edition of of a tanning solution.13 Wattles and Wattle-barks, being Hints on As these industries developed, abat- the Conservation and Cultivation of Wattles toirs and fellmongerers were often found together with Particulars of Their Value in together on water-courses on the fringes of 1890. urban life. Rivers supplied water for the tan- Maiden stated that the latter was a publi- ning process but also supplied the means for cation ‘issued to supply farmers, tanners, the removal of wastes. Skins were washed merchants, and others with authentic infor- in a series of deep pits of water and lime, mation in regard the value of wattles’.10 The and the hair and fat were removed before articulation of the information presented as the skins were returned to the pits to soak ‘authentic’ was an indicator of the grow- in tannin solutions for up to two months. ing importance of professional scientists. The skins were then dried and damped in As Jim Endersby points out in his exami- a process of smoothing that softened the nation of the career of the botanist Joseph texture of the leather. Tannin provided the Hooker, Director of the Royal Botanic Gar- colour for the hide but also aided in the che- dens, Kew, the mid to late nineteenth cen- mical alteration that preserved this change. tury was the time when it became possible in In the post-contact settlement of Australia, British society to earn a ‘respectable’ living the bark of wattles was readily available. as a scientist.11 Such authenticity enabled Stripped, dried and bundled, the bark was Joseph Maiden to cross into a range of dif- noted in the Sydney Gazette as an export ferent dimensions in the use of wattle for product as early as 1845.14 settler colonies, in Australia and abroad. The wattle or, more precisely, the wat- The first of these was a consideration of tle bark contained the right sort of tannin wattle as an economic product. that made it a perfect local match for the production of leather. In this period, leather was a practical product for everyday life.As Wattle as Economic Product George Foord pronounced in 1870: Tanning was a chemical process the antecedents of which are largely unknown. We have but to remember the wide Small-scale manufacturing emerged within range of applications for leather; – for economic and social systems of domes- boots and gloves, for saddlery, for coach- tication of animals. Animal skins were building, for belts and other adjuncts, usually a by-product of the butchering of machinery, for the binding of books cattle, sheep and goats for food. Convert- and for countless other purposes which ing skins to leather enhanced durability meet the eye in whatsoever direction we and pliability, allowing simple clothing look.15 38 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

In cities reliant on horses, not cars, and Board made a series of recommendations in ambulatory lives dependent on the stur- about how best to manage the resource for diness of boots, leather was everywhere. future use. Fellmongering and tanning provided an One of the key findings of the Board opportunity for botanists to match local was that the stripping of trees was indis- tannins to this ancient trade, and in the pro- criminate, particularly affecting the quality cess made an Australian tree into a local of the tannin because younger and younger economic product. trees were being denuded as a result of the Wattle was collected from trees by strip- increased demand. Wattles over five years ping the bark. What probably began as a old yielded the best tannin content in their chance application of a local bark to replace bark. In the main, wattles were not cropped the distant and inaccessible European tan- but strippers worked on stands wherever nin barks was quickly incorporated into they happened to be available. This was the manufacturing process. It was the local piecemeal work undertaken by itinerant and abundant availability of wattle, com- bush workers who moved between stripping bined with a trade practice imported from and other types of short-term work depend- elsewhere, that saw the rise of this new ing entirely on availability. The increasing possibility for the plant. The Ludowici Fell- demand for wattle bark as an export product mongery and Tanning plant at Lane Cove in in addition to supplying the local market Sydney housed seventy pits to cope with up placed pressure on these natural resources. to 3,000 animal skins.16 By 1882 up to fifty The Board developed a series of recom- tanned hides per week were produced from mendations aimed at protecting the wattle this factory alone.17 With tanning plants in a way that would maximize its commer- located throughout Sydney at this time, wat- cial capability. At this time, conservation tle bark was in high demand. By 1890Victo- of forests was linked to an economic func- ria housed ninety-six tanneries and the local tion. Foresters advocated plantations on the industry consumed between 12,000 and grounds that this would conserve valuable 15,000 tons of wattle bark each year.18 The resources by ensuring sustainable extraction viability of this industry was dependent on a levels. In the same way, the Board outlined steady supply of good quality bark, high in a scheme that called for the systematic cul- tannin content, from the Australian wattle. tivation of wattle. This meant restricting To ensure this supply and the vigour of indiscriminate stripping. The Board pro- a local industry that supported over 1,000 posed the introduction of a licence scheme families, and aware of its export capacity, policed by local constabulary; the plant- the Victorian parliament appointed a seven- ing and cultivating of wattle as a crop on man Wattle Bark Board of Inquiry in crown, freehold and leasehold lands; and 1878: E. J. Dixon (Chairman); J. Bosisto; restricting the stripping season to spring to M. L. King; George Fincham; John Rees; allow re-growth of wattle stands. In effect, Thomas Cope and the colony’sGovernment what the Board recommended was that bark Botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller. Their task stripping be taken out of the hands of the was to present a ‘full and careful investiga- itinerant working poor and placed in the tion into the subject of wattle conservation hands of those with a legal claim on land. and the concomitant industry of bark- Cropping wattle was seen as an enterprise stripping’.19 The Board was charged with that could contribute to the economic sta- turning anecdotal evidence about the exist- bility of individual settlers and the broader ing ad hoc approach to bark-stripping into economy. a measured and controlled understanding of The report was influential among the the situation. From these measurements, the emerging Forestry Departments in Victoria, National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 39

New South Wales, Tasmania and South written for specialized audiences into one Australia during the last two decades of for a more general reader. First, Maiden the nineteenth century.20 Forest conserva- selected a lock-step structure for the pam- tors planted wattle along railway corridors phlet that made each of the important ele- and then recommended against such action ments in the industry—from assessing soil because sparks from passing steam engines to selecting seed and tending plantations— created a fire hazard. In some cases licens- emerge from the mass of information that ing was introduced, for example, under the he had collected. The reports from Victoria Forest Acts of Victoria. John Ednie Brown’s and South Australia did not present mate- ‘Report on the Cultivation of Wattle’ for rial in this way. Maiden argued for wattle as the South Australian Legislative Council in an economically important crop, but he did 1884 followed the Victorian model, advo- so by presenting his work as a step-by-step cating the development of a wattle-bark guide. Second, he added an enumeration of industry in that colony.21 New SouthWales wattles including descrip- Reports to parliamentary or bureaucratic tions and wherever possible illustrations. In bodies are written for a specialized audi- this way he was educating his audience in ence. The purpose of each of these reports the identification of these Australian plants. was to gather information and present it The third feature of Wattles and Wattle- to the respective Parliament. They each barks, in comparison to the reports on argued for statutory arrangements that are wattle available in other colonies, was that the purvue of Parliament, including reg- Maiden was adapting and applying informa- ulations, licences and the distribution of tion from other contexts to those applicable authority to inspectors. Maiden followed in New South Wales. Maiden understood these two important reports with his Wat- that environments varied across the conti- tles and Wattle-barks in 1890. The audience nent and that information from elsewhere for this work was vastly different. As noted needed to be considered with this in mind. earlier, Maiden stated that his intended audi- As he argued in another forum: ence was ‘farmers, tanners, merchants and We in New South Wales have to work others’.22 out our own problems, some of them Maiden produced the first two of his the result of our special environment, three editions of Wattles and Wattle-barks and hence the experience of other coun- at the Technological Museum of Sydney. tries can only help us as a guide, and we Part of the museum’scharter was to provide cannot slavishly follow models, however practical advice to the people of New South excellent.23 Wales. The overarching aim of Maiden’s book was to provide authentic information Adapting intercolonial information had for New South Wales settlers. It drew from the same requirement. In this way Maiden many different sources, especially the influ- cherry-picked what he considered to be the ential report of the Victorian Wattle Board best of the information that was already but also other publications and from his available on the topic. He borrowed from correspondence from Natal, New Zealand, all the known reports, and then synthesised California and Hawaii. While on one level this with data he collected from New South Wattles and Wattle-barks was a simple reit- Wales situations. eration of the material gathered by a range In this way Wattles and Wattle-barks was of experts in the field, several factors distin- innovative for the New South Wales con- guished the work from others. text. ‘Wattle conservation and cultivation’, Maiden’s goal was to make informa- he said, ‘have been little taken up in our tion accessible, translating a range of texts own Colony, but we are already taking steps 40 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

to remedy this’.24 The part he played in of which were the tables of tannin con- this remedy was actively to advocate the tent that were published in the booklet. introduction of wattles and to stimulate Harrie Wood, the New South Wales Dire- change through a concerted campaign to ctor of Agriculture and Forestry, reported bring relevant information to the attention in 1892 that Maiden was part of the pro- of landholders. Maiden saw the potential for cess whereby a remedy for ignorance about the plant to serve a range of economic func- productive plants was to ‘actively diffuse tions. Wattle had the capacity to play a role accurate information in regard to the various as a plantation crop in the small-scale mixed articles the colony produces’.25 Accuracy farming of closer settlement, and it provided was not to be gained from anecdotal stories seasonal employment during the stripping of those who lived with wattle, for exam- process while also supporting a local man- ple, but from a displacement of the wattle ufacturing industry. In addition to these through vats and test tubes in the laboratory varied economic potentialities, Maiden also to give the information scientific legitimacy. advocated wattle bark as an export crop. Once accuracy was established, Maiden’s Finally, Maiden’s booklet added chemi- recommendations were authorized by his cal certainty to help settlers draw an indige- tabulations of wattle tannin. nous plant into their commercial operations. As Table 1 demonstrates, there was some It also added to Maiden’s authority in rela- variability in the tannin content of trees tion to Australian plants and their economic growing in New South Wales. Maiden potential. This authority was partly built also noted that the age of the tree cor- upon his ability to quantify the tannin con- related directly to the economic value of tent of the wattle. To do this Maiden carried the tannin and extract. This confirmed the out a series of analyses, the main outcome view reported by the 1878 Victorian Wattle

Table 1. Maiden’s Chemical Analysis of A. decurrens and A. mollisima (Not Distinguished) from Different Locations; Compiled from Wattles and Wattle-barks, 3rd Edition, pp. 36–38

Location of origin Tannic acid (%) Extract (%)91 Penrith (1) 33.5 61.85 Penrith (2) 35.3 59.05 Mulgoa, Penrith 35.56 59.2 Burragorang 34.85 61.5 12 miles from Burragonang Mountain 34.4 69.33 Cambewarra (1) 32.08 52.16 Cambewarra (2) 24.13 47.1 Nerriga (1) 36.3 62.54 Nerriga (2) 31.75 62.35 Nerriga (3) 29.25 59 Nerriga (4) 24.99 53.96 Bateman’s Bay (1) 34 59.45 Bateman’s Bay (2) 36.25 60.3 Bell’s Creek, Araluen 31.25 64.15 Eden 30.25 51.65 Tombong, Snowy River 24.63 45.8 Booral 28.52 56.1 Booral (2) 27.5 57.1 Raymond Terrace 33.2 56.1 Gosford 22 46.4 National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 41

Board: older trees yield better quality On 1 July 1896, Joseph Maiden became tannin. the tenth director of the Sydney Botanic Having completed the analyses, Maiden Gardens. His move to the Gardens saw set out to distribute the information. He an expansion of all the areas of inter- sent it to three main groups—newspapers, est he had developed at the Technologi- botanical institutions and individuals. This cal Museum. His new position gave him does not appear to be a case of people an increased capacity to pursue botani- soliciting information but of Maiden con- cal science, applied science, acclimatisation ducting a concerted campaign to circu- debates, floral nationalism and everyday late information throughout the colonies. life pertaining to botanical matters. In In New South Wales, 116 newspapers addition to his work at the Technological received the booklet in 1890. He also Museum, Maiden had also been the Con- sent it extensively throughout Australia, to sulting Botanist for the New South Wales landholders located in remote regions and Forestry and Agriculture Departments from coastal abodes. Botanic gardens, Depart- 1893. He continued this role until his retire- ments of Agriculture, universities and sci- ment in 1924, advising on scientific forestry entific and specialist societies such as the and advocating a national botanical sur- Royal Society of New South Wales and vey. He had always been an active mem- the Pharmaceutical Society were targeted. ber of a range of learned societies and Where it went overseas, material was pre- understood the importance of encouraging dominantly sent to Europe, North America strong relations between scientific societies and South Africa. Settler colonies domi- in Australia at this time. nated the pathways that Maiden chose for During the twenty-eight years of conveying this information.26 Maiden’s tenure at the Gardens, wattle Maiden distributed plant material as well remained an area of passionate interest as his published information.27 Packets of for him. As Table 2 demonstrates, corre- seeds, seedlings and herbarium specimens spondents in the late 1890s continued to travelled with Wattles and Wattle-barks.In pursue Maiden’sexpertise about this indige- this way, Maiden did more than just supply nous economic product with transnational advice about how the tanning industry could value. Despite six years having passed be developed and whether wattle tannins since the publication of the second edi- were chemically superior to other plants. tion of Wattles and Wattle-barks, requests In the preface to the first edition of the for copies continued to flow in. However, work, Maiden recommended the following this table also demonstrates that corre- wattles for planting in New South Wales: spondence about wattle expanded beyond ‘The South Australian Broad-leaved Wat- the narrow confines of Maiden’s text. His tle, Acacia pycnantha; The Sydney Black authority extended to the use of wattle in Wattle, Acacia decurrens; The Tasmanian other arenas such as landscape planting. and Victorian Black Wattle, Acacia mollis- The State Nursery at Campbelltown sup- sima’.28 Wattles indigenous to one colony plied 1,066 seedlings of Acacia baileyana were subject to movement within Australia to the Sydney Botanic Gardens between in the same way as exchanges occurred 1898 and 1914.29 This particular species at an international level. Despite the was favoured for planting in Centennial apparent localness of the advocacy, mov- Park and the Domian.The table also demon- ing wattles for economic purposes pro- strates that information about wattle was vided the possibility of environmental being requested by correspondents outside change in a range of places throughout New South Wales. Hence, although written the world. for a New South Wales audience, Maiden’s 42 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

Table 2. Sydney Botanic Gardens Correspondence Regarding Wattles, 1897–1898

Date Letter and details 92 11 October 1897 From I. W. Ellis, Fernholm, Manly, Re: Acacia decurrens. 9 October 1897 From the Overseer Centennial Park, Re: Border being planted with Acacias. 24 October 1897 From G. M. Elliot, Fernholm, Manly, Tendering thanks for work on wattles and wattle culture. 1 December 1897 From O. J. Rush, 68 Dowling Street Paddington, Asking for a copy of ‘Wattles and Wattle Barks of New South Wales’. 14 December 1897 From the Under Secretary of Lands, Respecting the cultivation of wattle. 8 March 1898 From H. Andzey (chief editor, ‘La Conceria’, Turin), Asking for a collection of wattle barks for Turin Exhibition. 20 April 1898 From Director, Botanic & Domain Gardens, Melbourne, Asking for a few seeds of Acacia baileyana. 5 April 1898 From J. H. Barber Forestry Exch Station, Santa Monica, California, Inquiring where to obtain a copy of Wattles and Wattle-barks. 1 June 1898 Undersecretary of Forests Sydney, Respecting wattle-barks. 28 June 1898 From Walter Gill, Conservator of Forests Adelaide, Re: Exchange from local Wattle Factory. 4 July 1898 From Conservator of Forests, Western Australia, Asking for seeds of Acacia baileyana. 20 July 1898 From R. D. Hay (for H. S. Lando), Respecting collections of Wattle Barks for Turin Exhibition. 18 August 1898 From J. H. Barber, Forestry Experimental Station, Santa Monica, CA, USA, Ack: receipt of Wattles and Wattle-barks, & re offer of data on Acacias &c. 2 September 1898 R. D. Hay Forest Branch Lands Department Sydney, Re: Supplying of Acacia maideni seeds, and applying for seeds. 6 September 1898 Serle and Sons, 86 King Street, Sydney, Applying for seeds of A. cyanophylla. 27 September 1898 Director, Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Asking for seeds of Acacia baileyana. 30 September 1898 A. G. Neale, Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Asking for seeds of Acacia vestita. 3 October 1898 N. R. Chisholm, Prairie Plains, Prairie Queensland, Forwarding of Acacia specimens and pods. 1 December 1898 A. R. Crawford, Moona Plains, Respecting description of an Acacia. 5 December 1898 Undersecretary of Lands, New South Wales, Forwarding a packet of pods of Acacia maideni.

booklet was being circulated beyond the dealt with the national borders were intro- colonial borders. duced in 1908, but the first plants to be banned under those laws were prickly pears Opuntia sp. in 1912. Before this time, the Transoceanic Travel philosophy of acclimatization guided the Wattles, wattle material and wattle informa- movement of various plant species. As far tion were also being circulated transnation- as botanists were concerned, it was a bor- ally. This may seem like a counter-intuitive derless world and collaboration between activity, given Maiden’s desire to see wat- scientists operated alongside national con- tle developed from a New South Wales cerns. Eucalypts travelled to India, Cam- domestic market into an export crop. This phor Laurels to Australia and Acacias to was an era during which the full ramifica- SouthAfrica. Of particular importance were tions of the relocation of plants into foreign plants that contributed to settler economies. habitats had not yet been fully realised. This principle saw Maiden accept 153 pack- The first Australian quarantine laws that ets of American grass and fodder plants National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 43

Table 3. South African Exchanges Extracted from the Sydney Botanic Gardens Letter Register, 1901–190293

Date From whom and residence Nature of application and representation 16 March 1900 Director Botanic Gardens, Durban Forwarding list of seeds available for exchange 6 April 1900 Director of Botanic Gardens, Natal Forwarding parcel of seeds 19 April 1900 Conservator of Forests, Capetown Respecting best sand fixing grass 19 April 1900 Conservator of Forests, Capetown Requesting supply of tree seeds 19 April 1900 Curator Botanic Gardens, Durban Report for the year 1899 16 May 1900 Director Botanic Gardens, Durban Forwarding packet of seeds 2 August 1900 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Requesting further supply seeds Capetown 3 August 1900 Director of Botanic Gardens, Durban Forwarding specimens for identification 13 August 1900 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Acknowledging receipt of seeds Capetown 5 September 1900 Curator of Botanic Gardens, Natal Forwarding seeds 30 November 1900 Undersecretary of Agriculture, [register entry illegible] Capetown 28 December 1900 Superintendant [register entry Acknowledging receipt of seeds illegible] Capetown 9 January 1901 Curator of Botanic Gardens, Natal 100 species of N S W forwarded 14 January 1901 The Hon. F. H. Moor, M.L.A. Natal, 3 packets of New South Wales seeds – Minister for Native Affairs Eucalyptus, etc. 29 January 1901 A. Smith Asking for information re soil and climate 22 February 1901 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Requesting a complete set of pamphlets Capetown 17 April 1901 Director of Botanic Gardens, Durban Forwarding publications 6 May 1901 Conservator of Forests, Capetown Forwarding list of desiderata 29 May 1901 Curator of Botanic Gardens, Natal Offering loan of specimens 29 May 1901 Conservator of Forests, Cape Town Requesting certain seeds 29 May 1901 Conservator of Forests, Cape Town Re specimens of Eucalyptus asked for 2 June 1901 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Acknowledging receipt of publications Cape town 15 June 1901 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Acknowledging receipt of plants Capetown 15 June 1901 Conservator of Forests, Capetown Requesting supply of seeds 22 July 1901 Prof. MacOwen Forwarding herbarium specimens 9 August 1901 Undersecretary of Agriculture, Forwarding publications asked for Capetown

from Professor Lamson-Scribner of the environmental change in both Australia and Department of Agriculture, Washington, in other settler locations throughout the world. 1896–1897.30 Maiden trialled these plants This was an integral part of the oper- in seed pans at Centennial Park, checking ations of a botanical institution at the them for drought-worthiness31 since this time. The register of letters for the Sydney specific adaptability was important to the Botanic Gardens shows the many different local pastoral industry. tendrils of these exchanges. Wattle repre- The inclusion of A. decurrens, A. pyc- sents only one small section of this trade. nantha and A. mollisima in transnational Bundles of wattle, wattle material and wat- exchanges provided the possibility of tle information found their way to India, 44 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

Hawaii, California, Argentina and Canada. that exchanges were not restricted to a Interestingly, although not a settler location, network of botanic gardens, but extended one bundle of wattle found its way to the to forestry and agriculture departments, Sukham Section of the Institute of Applied seedsmen, government botanists and inter- Botany in Leningrad, where wattles were ested individuals. The geographical cen- planted and cropped in the 1920s.32 Maiden tres receiving information were Durban, had moved from theTechnological Museum Capetown, Pretoria and Bloemfontein.39 and his wattle expertise had moved with Each experimented with wattle with varying him. The circulation of Wattles and Wattle- degrees of success, resulting in a complex barks became part of the work of his new set of exchange relations between South institution; one with an international profile Africa and the Sydney Botanic Gardens. and higher degree of botanical authority. Seeds made up one portion of these One of these paths saw wattle, wattle exchanges. The most effective way to trans- material and wattle information shift from fer wattle was in its seed form, rather Australia to South Africa.33 Maiden was than as seedlings or cuttings. A common by no means the first Australian to send label for material sent within this net- wattles to South Africa. As Harold Witt work was ‘New South Wales seeds’.40 For points out, private tree enthusiasts were example, in 1899, Durban Botanic Gardens experimenting with Acacias and Eucalyp- received 214 packets of ‘New South Wales tus in South Africa as early as 1846.34 Of seeds’.41 This trade in seeds continued in the introduction of the black wattle into the twentieth century. On 4 April 1909 and Natal, the Conservator of Forests,T. R. Sim, again on 16 May 1914, the same institution noted: ‘though it probably arrived first as was sent 64 packets of New South Wales an ornamental tree the writings of the late seed.42 The letters that correspond to these Baron von Mueller, particularly his “Select register items have been destroyed, so it is Extra-tropical Plants” drew attention to its not possible to identify the quantities of wat- value as a tanin-producer’.35 Acacia mol- tle that were included in parcels generically lisima was received at the Natal Botanic branded as ‘New South Wales seeds’. How- Gardens in 1878, with Acacia dealbata ever, the most common species sent at that being made available for sale in 1880 time were eucalypts, casuarinas, araucarias by the curator Willam Keit.36 The later and wattles.43 curator John Medley Woods actively dis- In 1884, Charles Moore drew up a cen- tributed wattle to various places and farms sus of the plants of New South Wales.44 near Durban.37 On 8 February 1890, well Maiden reprinted this volume and sent it before Maiden became director, the Syd- out into his botanical network so recipi- ney Botanic Gardens sent New South Wales ents could indicate their desiderata. How seeds to Peter MacOwan in Capetown and many he sent, or to whom he sent them, is John Medley Woods in Durban.38 When unknown. However, eight returned volumes Maiden went on to contribute seeds, plant survive in the Sydney Botanic Gardens’ material and publications about wattle to collection and demonstrate how botanists South Africa, he was building on a range at, for example, the Museo Nacional de of pre-existing relationships. Buenos Aires, Buitenzorg in Java and the Clearly, exchanges with South Africa University of California in the USA used were not restricted to wattle or indeed to the document. They marked the catalogue the exchange of plant material such as to show which species were desired and seeds. These exchanges demonstrate the returned it to Maiden. Maiden then used variability of information and plants that the documents to prepare shipments of plant traversed the Indian Ocean. They also show material to those places. As Ernst Betche National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 45

wrote to Dr L. Radlkofer of the Botanical practices. Hence, rather than using ad hoc Museum in Munich: access to crown land as had their counter- parts in Australia, wattle became a staple on I have pleasure in sending you by this some farms and an element of mixed farm- week’s mail 100 species of NSW plants ing on others in the manner recommended mostly your desiderata but as the par- by Maiden in Wattles and Wattle-barks. cel has been made up partly before we The second feature of the South African received your marked Census it contains farming method was stable, cheap and read- some species already represented in your ily available labour. From the 1850s until herbarium.45 1917, Natal used indentured Indians from Madras and Calcutta as coolie labour rather In the same vein, on 6 May 1901 the than using indigenous, Afrikaans or British Conservator of Forests in Capetown for- labour. Primarily these people were inden- warded his list of desiderata to Sydney.46 tured to the sugar industry, working in the In every surviving copy of this Census still fields and mills of this region. Indentured held in the library of the Royal Botanic labourers were contracted for five-year Gardens Sydney, the most heavily anno- terms with the option to re-contract, repa- tated pages deal with the eucalypts and the triate or stay on in Natal as free immigrants wattles.47 In discussing wattle seed in Wat- at the completion of the contract. As the tles and Wattle-barks, Maiden focused on scheme developed into the 1880s, Natal saw the availability of A. decurrens seed ‘of a mix of indentured and free Indians liv- excellent quality [which] may be obtained ing in both urban and rural areas. While up within our own territory’.48 A parcel of to 80% of these workers were contracted ‘New South Wales seeds’sent from the Syd- to sugar, the remaining 20% dispersed into ney Botanic Gardens to South Africa most a range of other agricultural and small- likely included wattles. It is highly proba- business pursuits. Wattle plantations were ble that when wattle was included in these one of the options for these workers at an parcels, it was A. decurrens seed. indentured rate of two shillings per day.49 The 1909 Indian Immigration Commis- sion reported that without indentured Indian In South Africa labour wattle growing, among other indus- In establishing a wattle industry, South tries, was under threat of abandonment.50 African agriculturalists developed three fac- In addition to the indentured labour, native tors that were missing in Australia. First, peoples also found work in the wattle indus- they created plantations of wattle, neatly try. Witt argues that black tenant farm- rowed, thinned and pruned as required, ers, both male and female, laboured on mulched and tended until ready for har- wattle plantations during seasonal thinning vest. The optimum time for this was ten and stripping.51 The extraction factory at years with 10% of the crop being harvested Melmoth used a native workforce for the and then replaced each year. This was a unskilled component of its operations and method advocated in continental forestry paid them in board and rations, rather than and ensured sustainable income following in meagre wages as paid to the Indians.52 the initial period of establishment of the Additionally, South Africans experi- trees. Natal provides a comparative example mented with different sorts of technology, of the development of this industry in South including light rail, purpose-built drying Africa. By the 1890s many farmers in the sheds and a willingness to place extraction Natal region had incorporated the scientific plants strategically, relatively close to the management of wattle into their agricultural plantations themselves. All these features 46 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

had been recommended by various Aus- Responding from Sydney tralian botanists and foresters, including In 1904 the New South Wales Department Maiden. The Natal Tanning Extract Co. was of Lands prepared a circular about the rel- one of several organizations that used an ative situation concerning the New South integrated model in their approach to the Walesand Natal wattle bark industries.They production of tanning extract.They invested sought information about whether there had in land for plantations and set up factories been a downturn in production at the same 53 close to the farms. The Town Hill Wattle time as prices for the raw product had risen. Co. incorporated tramways to transport bark This concern for the local industry was to rail-heads, and additionally developed stimulated by the success in Natal: drying sheds that allowed farmers to protect the drying wattle from damaging mist and This inquiry, I may state is instituted, in rain; concertina-like drying racks could be consequence of an intimation received moved in and out of the sun as needed.54 In from a correspondent of Cape Town, their survey of the South African industry, South Africa, who alleges that inquiries A. J. O’Connor and I. J. Craib found that the have been made there by Australian large plantations, that is, those of between tanners for wattle-bark grown in Natal 2,000 and 6,500 acres, each ‘constitute[d] by private enterprise from seed of the a working circle, and support[ed] its own indigenous species Acacia decurrens, bark mill and plant for the sawing of mine which was originally obtained from this 61 props and firewood’.55 State. Some of the bark produced was used in By this time, the second edition of Wat- the local boot and shoe industry, but such tles and Wattle-barks was twelve years old. was the success of these plantations that Much had changed in that time with regard the bulk went overseas to meet a growing to the establishment of wattle for industrial global demand. In 1886, the value of the purposes, in particular the success of South export crop from Natal was £11, but by 1903 African ventures. Additionally, Maiden had this had increased to £70,581.56 Australia been at the Sydney Botanic Gardens for on the other hand only managed to export eight years and this circular seems to have bark worth £63,732 in 1900.57 In 1902, Fred provided the opportunity for a revision of Wright noted in the Journal of Agriculture his early work. and Industry of South Australia that in the Maiden’s third edition of Wattles and six years between 1896 and 1901, ‘South Wattle-barks (1906) included his views on Africa had increased her export of wattle the growth of the Natal industry. In dis- bark by 8,418 tons, while South Australia cussing this spectacular economic success, has decreased by 2,795 tons.’58 he argued that in Australia, ‘attempts to South Africans created a new industry place forestry matters on a sound basis with the wattle based on plantation agri- are persistently resisted by outsiders’, and culture. By 1905 South Africans were able that this ‘augur[ed] badly for the future’.62 to export wattle bark back to Australia for Rather than taking this situation at face use in its domestic industry. Jared Smith value, however, he relayed his conversa- of the Hawaii Agricultural Research Sta- tion with the visiting chairman of the Land tion hailed South Africa as the country that Board in Natal. He argued that three factors ‘produced the bulk of the world’ssupply’.59 enhanced the economic success of wattle in This caused some consternation inAustralia, Natal: available labour in the form of Indian where one newspaper suggested that coolies and natives, plantation cropping, Australians should ‘blush with shame’ at and the fact that these lands had been ‘tree- this ‘bad miss for New South Wales’.60 less’ and therefore did not need clearing.63 National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 47

Contrary to other commentators about wattle as an economic product, first at the this state of affairs, Maiden was optimistic Technological Museum and second at the about the capacity to change the fortunes of Sydney Botanic Gardens. At the museum, the local industry: he had translated and synthesised information for ease of access. At the Gardens, he What Natal has done, I do not doubt used his knowledge and experience and his can be profitably repeated in New South position in the broader botanical exchanges Wales in another way … the time will to comment on the international com- come when it will be realised that our petition for sustainable economic growth national forests are not the sole prop- through an indigenous tree. From both erty of the persons who exploit them, and places he had sent wattle, wattle material the people immediately dependent on the and wattle information as part of transna- industry, but belong to the people of the tional botanical exchanges. The next phase State at large.64 in Maiden’s association with wattle built His solution was to use scientific prin- this authority into a completely different ciples in dealing with forestry matters. For realm, bringing economic botany to bear in Maiden, the role of the state was to regulate the creation of symbols of nationalism. the use of forests so that the supply of wattle bark could be maintained in the long-term. Plantation cropping was the parallel part of Wattle Nationalism at the Sydney this process that the state should encourage. Botanic Gardens He advocated effective management that As general sentiment swelled around the would help to protect forests from exploita- cultural construction of nationhood from tion while enabling the development of the the 1880s up to federation, wattle became a wattle bark industry. symbolic vehicle for patriotism.The use of a The third edition of Maiden’s book- particular natural item to representAustralia let, like the versions produced at the was part of the process of enunciating the Technological Museum, was circulated nation. Libby Robin calls the use of Aca- through his network of correspondents. On cia as floral emblem ‘wattle nationalism’.66 3 October 1906 the Conservator of Forests Australians actively attached ideas of at Capetown acknowledged receipt of a nationalism to the wattle. Robin points to copy of the new edition. Later in the same the campaign for wattle as one of the first month, on 29 October, Maiden was fielding concerns of the Australian Natives’ Asso- an inquiry regarding this publication from ciation, initially formed in 1871. On 3 the Conservator of Forests at Pretoria.65 March 1890 they formed the ‘Wattle Blos- The new edition added more species to som League’, specifically for the wives of the list provided at the rear of the pam- members.The task of feminizing nature and phlet. Maiden also rearranged the indexing nation fell to these women, who agreed to to reflect a scientific standard, including a wear wattle ‘either artificial or real’ when- bibliography of scientific texts consulted. ever the opportunity arose. On 18 March All of these additions reflect the standards 1890, the first social event for the Wattle expected from a scientific institution as Blossom League was held at the Town Hall opposed to a museum. in Adelaide. Tables were set with sprays The release of this edition preceded of wattle as centrepieces; a poem about Maiden’s campaign to use wattle as a Australia was read and followed by songs symbol of nationalism. Maiden’s authority about wattle and Australia.67 The Wattle regarding wattles was now well established. Blossom League also succeeded in hoist- He had been actively involved in promoting ing a wattle banner featuring the local South 48 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

Australian wattle Acacia pycnantha at the Morning Herald in 1910, he went on to Foundation Day celebrations on 26 January expound the virtues of the wattle flower as 1891. Wattle was a symbolic vehicle for the ‘emblem of peace’. He implored readers to transmission of these other goals.68 consider themselves good Australian citi- The campaign for wattle as the national zens of the British Empire, thus using the symbol was similarly taken up byArchibald plant to help distinguish national identity Campbell, who started a private Wattle within the British ‘family’ of nations.72 Club in Victoria. Campbell’s interests in Familiarity with the plant helped British ornithology made him an enthusiastic bush- Australians shift from being strangers in a walker, and this club took members out strange land to being ‘settled’ in a home- from Melbourne into areas where wattle land. In order to achieve this, a shift had stands blossomed. Groups visited the Wer- to occur; the plant had to be transformed ribee Gorge, the You Yangs and Eltham in into one that could metaphorically connect early spring to admire the wattle within its its attributes to attributes of the Australian natural habitat.69 Campbell, like Maiden, character and national identity. Of this, became a symbol of authority in promoting Agnes Storrie of the Wattle Day League wattle in this way. As the movement gained said ‘to the native-born Australian the Wat- momentum across Australia, various states tle stands for home, country, sunshine and developed local groups to formalize the love – every instinct that the heart most promotion of wattle. One aspect of wat- deeply enshrines’.73 An outward display of tle nationalism was the formation of the wattle, whether worn as a sprig, presented New South Wales Wattle Day League. On as cut flowers, or pressed into letters sent 30 August 1909, the League was formed overseas, demonstrated an allegiance to this at a meeting of ‘like minded enthusi- national identity. One way to develop the asts’. Joseph Maiden, Agnes Clunies-Ross theme was to plant wattles as ornamental and June Kettlewell formed a commit- trees. This enabled gardeners and garden tee devoted to ‘the idea of embodying lovers to blend their sense of home with their Australian National sentiment in a native identity as Australians. flower’. This league’s motto was ‘wear Acknowledging that national ‘belonging’ wattle and plant wattle’.70 was cultural work that required a commit- Wattle nationalism was promoted by ment, Maiden explained: ‘it is a pleasant Maiden in his writings and lectures, help- way of studying a group of plants with ing to construct an everyday knowledge for whichAustralians are, as a rule, but superfi- Australians about the flora that was unique cially acquainted’.74 The planting of wattle to the nation. For example, in 1908 he was an activity that would shift Australians addressed the students of the Clergy Daugh- into a deeper relationship with Australian ters’ School about the floral emblems of environments. It was the repetition of the different nations. He closed his address by association of wattle with nationalism that pointing out that Australia was yet to adopt reinforced such an association with the a floral emblem but that, in his opinion, a nation, Australia.75 This was to know and Eucalyptus or wattle blossom was the per- own a sense of Australian-ness that could fect choice: ‘these occur abundantly in all be attained through both home and public the States, and it would never do to adopt gardens. Nationalists, Wattle Day Leaguers, as Australian emblem, a flower confined to members of the Australian Natives’Associ- one State and perhaps a small portion of ation and the Director of the Sydney Botanic it’.71 In the following year he abandoned Gardens together actively used wattle to the Eucalyptus in favour of the wattle when enable the nation to be experienced at the he joined the Wattle League. In the Sydney scale of the ‘local’. For geographer Sarah National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 49

Whatmore such ‘everyday practices’ are into architectural forms including wallpa- ‘performative rather than cognitive’.76 In per, light fittings, glazed products, ceram- planting wattle, the individual performed ics and plasterwork that have subsequently nationalism rather than having to explain been understood as part of the architectural what it meant to be a native Australian. style known as ‘federation’. Baker con- Maiden performed this brand of nation- stantly stressed both the attributes of the alism through planting wattle in two key waratah and its superiority over the wat- places under his charge: in Centennial tle. The variation and extent of the designs Park and in the Outer Domain. Rather than left Baker remarking that ‘the Waratah planting singular scientific examples, as he [required] no aids to produce effects such might have done in the Sydney Botanic as the Wattle demands’.80 His attempt to Gardens, Maiden used these secondary show the geographical reach of the plant spaces of his park group to present massed in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasma- wattle. In planting groups of twenty-eight nia responded to the wattle advocates’claim wattle shrubs together in Centennial Park in that wattle was found all over Australia. 1896–1897 ‘for their showy winter bloom’, Wattle and waratah could also be cate- he mimicked nature by replicating the floral gorized respectively as representing useful stands that he saw on his collecting trips.77 and ornamental botany. Wattle was a useful Of these trips Maiden wrote: plant and waratah was an ornamental one. Articulating a plant as useful noted its com- It is one of the joys of life to drive through mercial exchange and carried the weight wattle country, particularly on a dull and expectation of the colonial project spring morning, and feast the senses on found at the Sydney Botanic Gardens. the never-to-be-forgotten glories of the A useful plant was one the qualities and golden cascades, and to receive vigour attributes of which made it a viable product and inspiration from the sweet, dainty of industry. The bark of the wattle was an perfume.78 additive in the tanning process: wattle was valuable to settlement through systems of Presenting the massed Cootamundra manufacture, extraction and manipulation wattle Acacia baileyana at Centennial Park of its natural properties. Ornamental plants brought the bush to the city, thereby con- on the other hand were understood as part of flating nature and nation. the nature of aesthetics and the aesthetics of In New South Wales, unlike other states, nature. An ornamental plant had a function the notion of wattle as the national symbol but did not meet a need and was therefore was controversial. Here the wattle tussled seen as of somewhat less importance in this with the waratah for this honour. Each era of settler colonialism. plant had its champions and the waratah Maiden, an expert in economic botany, drew support from Richard T. Baker, the drew the economic value of wattle into this curator who had assisted Maiden and even- debate. Arguing in the patriotic magazine tually succeeded him at the Technological The Lone Hand for its establishment as a Museum. Baker saw the waratah as ‘nature’s national symbol, Maiden said: triumph in this quarter of the botanical world’ and wrote a series of articles in Although Australia has passed through the Technical Gazette of New South Wales the stage when wattling was an essen- displaying the many ways in which the tial part of a dwelling and a recog- form of the waratah lent itself to the dec- nised colonial industry, the wattle still orative arts of the industrial age.79 Baker has utilitarian associations, for the barks showed how the waratah had been translated of some species are valuable tanning 50 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

agents, and thousands of acres are con- time, Acacia pycnantha was the preferred served or planted for the yield of this national emblem. This was one of the main product alone.81 wattles cropped in SouthAustralia to supply tannin bark for the tanning and fellmonger- E. S. Emerson, writing in the same mag- ing industry between the 1860s and the First azine in 1910, also linked the profitability World War, and South Australia had been and potential of the wattle as a tanning bark one of the earliest colonies to advocate its to the Australian character.82 Maiden and use as a national emblem. Wattle may not others saw the wattle in relation to the idea have been able to compete with wheat at an of its being a resource for settlers, so that it economic level, but it did provide an asso- could also stand for the resourcefulness and ciation with future prosperity in this layered economic potential of settlers, an argument representation. Maiden saw this as a distin- that had been around since the potential of guishing feature that added to the argument wattle for tanning leather had been noted in in favour of wattle’s use as a national sym- 1802.83 bol. The same argument could not be made Ironically, the most important plants about the waratah. in the Australian economy at this time In 1911, Edward Sorenson pointed out were non-indigenous. As Robert Burt and that South Africa had selected the wattle W.T.Williams have shown, this had been the as their emblematic flower at the time of case inAustralia since the arrival of the First the coronation of King George V.88 Soren- Fleet.84 Cereals—wheat, oats, and maize— son raised this point in making an argument were the most important economic crops at that wattle was an Australian national sym- the time of federation. In 1908, Australia bol and should not be usurped by South had 5,383,911 acres of wheat under crop,85 African claims. This international rivalry sugarcane was planted into 144,763 acres emerged at the same time as the Wattle of land,86 and orchards and other fruit gar- League was sowing the seeds of the wattle dens covered 170,448 acres.87 However, the for a crop of Australian patriotism and sen- Commonwealth Statistician did not list the timent. Libby Robin and Jane Carruthers acreage employed in the cropping of wat- have detailed the events surrounding the tle. Wattle and the contribution of tannin embroidery of the coronation robes with bark was a marginal economic exercise. In symbols from the British Empire. They the blending of economic development and demonstrate that Lord Gladstone, South potential in Australia, the obvious choice Africa’s first governor-general, was out- was a cereal crop. An exotic foreigner could raged at the use of imagery that looked never, however, be considered as a national likeAustralian wattle, not indigenous South symbol, even if it more accurately symbol- African Acacia. The robes were altered by ized the occupation of Australian land. the addition of thorns that brought them Maiden and others promoting wat- closer to representing an indigenous South tle were well aware of the circulating African species, Acacia horrida. Sorenson visions of Australia as a nation increas- was mistaken about the SouthAfrican desire ingly independent of Britain both eco- to claim wattle as their national flora. South nomically and politically, despite on-going Africa eventually adopted the King Protea, rhetoric about ‘British Australia’. Wattle Protea cynaroides, in 1975.89 fulfilled this combination of needs for symbolic representation. It was indigenous, distributed across the continent and eco- Conclusion nomically useful. It was telling that, from In many ways Joseph Maiden was sim- the many varieties known to science at that ply one agent among many engaged in National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 51

the dissemination of wattle. By tracing the The places in which he worked and the relations between the work of one man exchange networks he maintained show that and the broader forces of settler colonial- what was national could also be transna- ism, this paper has demonstrated that wattle tional, and what was transnational was also was not constrained to a single site but global without ever losing the sense of wat- instead was found simultaneously in mul- tle being an Australian tree. The multiple tiple global sites. Although much had been transnational networks that formed around written about wattle by the time Maiden wattle show, as Nigel Thrift suggests, that became interested, he was to play a key ‘the “material” and the “social” intertwine role in creating information that was easily and interact in all manner of promiscu- accessible. He was an advocate for change ous combinations’.90 The wattle was nei- in the way that farmers considered the use ther national nor transnational but instead of their land through the application of operated in multiple spheres. scientific principles using Australian flora. Importantly, once circulated, this infor- References mation was not confined by the political 1. Lionel Gilbert, The Little Giant: the Life and boundaries created when Maiden produced Work of Joseph Henry Maiden 1859–1925 his book for a New South Wales audience. (Sydney, 2001), pp. 22–23. See also Mark Maiden’s move to the Sydney Botanic Lyons and C. J. Pettigrew, ‘Maiden, Joseph Gardens both reinforced and enhanced his Henry (1859–1925)’, in Australian Dictio- nary of Biography, Vol. 10 (Melbourne, 1986), position in a global network of botanical pp. 381–383. exchange. This in turn enlarged the audi- 2. Ken Orchard, ‘Regional Botany in ence for his work. South Africans interested Mid-Nineteenth-Century Australia: Mueller’s in wattle were able to solicit both wat- Murray River Collecting Network’, Historical tle material, mostly in the form of seeds, Records ofAustralian Science, 11, no. 3 (1997), 389–405; A. M. Lucas, ‘Baron Von Mueller: and wattle information. While commenta- Protege Turned Patron’, in Australian Science tors like Sorenson saw this as undermin- in the Making, ed. R.W. Home (Cambridge, ing a national industry, Maiden took the 1988), pp. 133–152. opposite approach. Good-will, collabora- 3. Joseph Maiden, Wattles and Wattle-Barks, tion and intellectual generosity mark the being Hints on the Conservation and Cul- tivation of Wattles together with Particu- easy exchanges of Maiden’s wattle work lars of Their Value, 3rd ed. (Sydney, 1906), with South African parties. pp. 62–63. Authority built through scientific prac- 4. Whilst at the Technological Museum, Maiden tice also created a platform for Maiden to regularly sent letters and plant material to Kew; move into the public sphere. This author- New South Wales Victoria Letters, Vol. 173, Correspondence, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ity carried him gracefully into the realm of 5. Home et al. show that Maiden was amongst cultural nationalism. Here he advocated a Mueller’s top twenty correspondents in terms nationalism built on an emotional attach- of volume of material exchanged; R. W. Home ment to Australia through the indigenous et al., ‘Introduction’, in Regardfully Yours: flora. These plants were thereby associated Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand Von Mueller, Vol. 3 (Bern, 2006), p. 45. with the possibility of ‘indigenizing’ set- 6. Ian R. Tyrrell, True Gardens of the Gods: tlers and making them feel at home on this Californian-Australian Environmental Reform, continent. Maiden’s other spheres of pro- 1860–1930 (Berkeley,Calif, 1999); IanTyrrell, fessional scientific interest produced the ‘American Exceptionalism in an Age of possibility of this involvement in matters International History’, American Historical Review, 96 (1991), 1031–1055; Ian Tyrrell, of cultural discourse. Joseph Maiden’swork Transnational Nation: United States History facilitated the criss-crossing of the national in Global Perspective since 1789 (New York, and transnational paths of the wattle. 2007). 52 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

7. StevenVertovec, ‘Conceiving and Researching 23. Manuscript of the History of the Syd- Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, ney Botanic Gardens, Maiden’s Centennial 22 (1999), 447–462; p. 447. Manuscripts, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney 8. Gilbert, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 67. Library Special Collections, p. 20. 9. Richard White, ‘Imagining: RepresentingAus- 24. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 7. tralia’, in Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Power- 25. Harrie Wood, ‘Annual Report of the Depart- house Museum and Its Precursors 1880–2005, ment of Agriculture and Forestry’ (Sydney, ed. Graeme Davison and Kimberley Webber 1894–5), p. 50. (Haymarket, NSW, 2005), pp. 127–141. 26. Powerhouse MuseumArchives, ‘Record of free 10. Joseph Maiden, Wattles and Wattle-Barks, publications 1890–1892’, MRS 44–47. being Hints on the Conservation and Culti- 27. Register of Letters received, 1897–98, Syd- vation of Wattles together with Particulars of ney Botanic Gardens, State Records of NSW, Their Value (Sydney, 1890), p. v. 19/17192–8. 11. Jim Endersby, Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker 28. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 10), p. v. and the Practices of Victorian Science 29. Register of Plants received from the State Nurs- (Chicago, 2008), pp. 7–12. ery Campbelltown, 1898–1924, Royal Botanic 12. E. J. Dixon et al., ‘Report of the Wattle Bark Gardens Library Special Collections. Board of Inquiry together with a Statement 30. Maiden, ‘Report on Botanic Gardens and showing the Profit to be Derived from the Sys- Domains, &c. for the Year 1896–7’ (Sydney, tematic Cultivation of Wattles’ (Melbourne, 1897), p. 6. 1878), p. 23. 31. Ibid., p. 19. 13. F.A. Coombs, E. Swinbourne and G.W.Gabbs, 32. V. Nicolaieff, ‘Australian Acacias and an ‘Fellmongering and Tanning Sheepskins in Experiment of Their Acclimatization’, Bul- New South Wales Part 2’, Technical Gazette letin of Applied Botany, Genetics and Plant New SouthWales, 6(2) (1916), 26–36; Coombs, Breeding, 22 (1929), 362–404. Swinbourne and Gabbs, ‘Fellmongering and 33. Ann Milligan, ‘Historic Black Wattle’, Trees Tanning Sheepskins in New South Wales Part and Natural Resources (1994), 13. 1’, Technical Gazette New South Wales, 6(1) 34. Harold Witt, ‘The Emergence of Privately (1916), 25–40; Coombs, ‘Wattle Bark andTan- Grown Industrial Tree Plantations’, in South ning Industry’, Technical Gazette New South Africa’s Environmental History: Cases and Wales (1912), 52–56; Henry Phillips, A Survey Comparisons, ed. Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edge- of Fellmongering, Calf Skin and Hide Produc- combe, and Bill Guest (Cape Town, 2002), tion, Leather Manufacture in New Zealand and p. 91. Australia (Egham, Surrey, 1957). 35. T. R. Sim,Tree Planting in Natal (Peitermaritz- 14. J. Mitchell, ‘On the Export and Consump- burg, 1905), pp. 125–126. tion of Wattle Bark and the Process of Tan- 36. William Keit, ‘Curator’sReport, Natal Botanic ning, &c.’, Papers and Proceedings of the Gardens for 1878’ (Durban, 1879), p. 4; Keit, Royal Society of Van Dieman’s Land, 1 (1851), ‘Curator’s Report, Natal Botanic Gardens for 219. 1880’ (Durban, 1880), p. 2. 15. George Foord, ‘Tanning’, in Industrial and 37. Sherry states that Medley Woods was dis- Technological Museum, Lectures 1871 (Mel- tributing wattle seed from the Durban Botanic bourne, 1871), p. 182. Gardens in the 1860s; see S. P. Sherry, 16. P. R. Cole, ‘The Leather Industry and J. C. The Black Wattle (Acacia Mearnsii De Ludowici’, in Pioneers of Australian Industry: Wild.) (Pietermaritzburg, 1971). However, the Australian Industries andTheir Founders (Syd- reports of the Natal Botanic Gardens are ney, 1926), p. 135;AudreyTate, Ludowici Lim- authored by Medley Woods as the curator ited: Pioneering the Past, Forging the Future only from 1883; Donal P. McCracken and 1858–2004 (St Leonards, NSW, 2005). Eileen McCracken, The Way to Kirstenbosch 17. Tate, ibid.,p.12. (Pretoria, 1988), p. 68. 18. Dixon et al., op. cit. (n. 12), p. 4. 38. Register of plants sent away from the Botanic 19. Ibid., p. 3. Gardens, 1890; State Records of NSW, 20. Suzette Searle, The Rise and Demise of 19/17204–7. the Black Wattle Bark Industry in Australia 39. Sherry, op. cit. (n. 39). (Yarralumla, ACT, 1991), pp. 10–15. 40. Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney registers held 21. John Ednie Brown, ‘Report on Cultivation of at the State Records of NSW: 19/17187; Wattles’ (Adelaide, 1884). 19/4831–36; 5/4869; 19/17200; 19/17192–98; 22. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 10), p. v. 5/4806–30; X653; 19/17199; 19/17204–7. National and Transnational Circulation of Wattle 53

41. Maiden, ‘Report on Botanic Gardens and the Most Interesting and Instructive Extracts Domains for Year 1899’ (Sydney, 1900), p. 10. Gathered from the Best Authorities on This 42. Register of plants and seeds despatched, 1900– Subject (Sydney, 1909), p. 7. 1907; State Records of NSW 19/17189; Reg- 57. F. W. Vickery, ‘Wattle Cultivation’, Journal ister of plants and seeds sent to and received of Agriculture and Industry South Australia from botanical institutions, State Records of (1901), 60. NSW 19/17200. 58. Wright, op. cit. (n. 59), p. 940. 43. Brett M. Bennet, 2009, ‘GlobalizingAustralia’s 59. Jared G. Smith, ‘The Black Wattle (Acacia Forests: Reconsidering Ecological Imperial- decurrens) in Hawaii’, Vertical File Collec- ism and the Imperial Origins of the Global- tion, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Library ization of Nature’, unpublished paper, p. 1. (no date), p. 8. 44. Charles Moore, A Census of the Plants of New 60. Grey, op. cit. (n. 59), p. 8. South Wales (Sydney, 1884). 61. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 5. 45. Ernst Betche to L. Radlkofer, Botanical 62. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 6. Museum, Munich, 11 August 1900; Royal 63. Ibid. Botanic Gardens Sydney, Copies of letters sent 64. Ibid. re plants and seeds despatched, 1900–1907, 65. Registers of Letters received, 1906, State State Records of NSW 19/17189.156. Records of NSW, 19/17192–98. 46. Register of letters received 1897–1906, Royal 66. Libby Robin, ‘Wattle Nationalism’, National Botanic Gardens Sydney, State Records of Library of Australia News, 18(4) (2008), 3–6. NSW 19/17192–98. 67. William Sowden, ‘Australia: A Plea for Patri- 47. These eight copies are shelved within the gen- otic Sentiment – Order of the Wattle Blossom’, eral library collection at the Royal Botanic in An Australian Native’s Standpoint (London, Gardens Sydney Library. 1912); Sowden, ‘Outline History of the Wattle 48. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 13. Blossom Celebration in Australia’ (Adelaide, 49. Hamilton Fyfe, South Africa Today: with an 1913), p. 2. Account of Modern Rhodesia (London, 1911), 68. Regarding the ANA, see also Richard White, p. 161. InventingAustralia: Images and Identity 1688– 50. Henry Bale, ‘Report of the Indian Immigra- 1980 (Sydney, 1981), pp. 117–119. tion Commission’ (Pietermaritzburg, 1909), 69. Archibald James Campbell, GoldenWattleOur pp. 637–638. National Floral Emblem (Melbourne, 1921); 51. Witt explored the twentieth-century labour mix Ian Campbell, ‘ “Yellow-Haired September”: in relation to the wattle industry and found that A Reflection on the National Floral Emblem the highest representation was in black labour in A. J. Campbell’s Golden Wattle’, Australian emerging from the tenant farmer arrange- Humanities Review, no. 41 (2007). ments of the earlier era. He does not discuss 70. Agnes L. Storrie, ‘Wattle Day League’, Ver- Indian minorities as contributory. Harold Witt, tical File Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens ‘ “Clothing the Once Bare Brown Hills of Sydney Library. Natal”: the Origin and Development of Wattle 71. Maiden, ‘Some National Flower Emblems’, Growing in Natal, 1860–1960’, South African The Amateur Gardener (1908), 30. Historical Journal, 53 (2005), 111–113. 72. Maiden, ‘What Is an Empire?’, Sydney Morn- 52. E. Thorrington-Smith, Tugela Basin Regional ing Herald, 25 May 1910. Survey (Pietermaritzburg, 1952), p. 107. 73. Storrie, op. cit. (n. 73). 53. J. Henderson, ‘Wattle-Growing in South 74. Maiden, ‘Some New South Wales Plants Africa’, New Zealand Journal of Science and Worth Cultivating for Shade, Ornamental, and Technology (1930), 52; ‘A Thriving Wattle Other Purposes’, New SouthWalesAgricultural Plantation’, New South Wales Agricultural Gazette, 8(6) (1896), 350. Gazette (1900), 1164–1165. 75. Stephen Muecke, ‘What Makes a Car- 54. Ibid., p. 1165. pet Fly? Cultural Studies in the Indian 55. A. J. O’Connor and I. J. Craib, ‘Sylvicul- Ocean’, Transforming Cultures ejournal, 3(2) tural Investigation of the Black Wattle (Acacia (2008), 30. mollissima Willd.)’, South African Journal of 76. SarahWhatmore, Hybrid Geographies: Natures Science, 26 (1929), 246. Cultures Spaces (London, 2002), p. 6. 56. Fred S. Wright, ‘Wattles and Wattle Bark’, 77. Maiden, op. cit. (n. 32), pp. 18–19. Journal of Agriculture and Industry South 78. Maiden, ‘Acacia Burkittii, F.v.M.Burkitt’sWat- Australia (1902), 940;A. H. Grey, ed.,The Cul- tle’, in The Forest Flora of New South Wales tivation of Wattle and Wattle Bark, comprising (Sydney, 1906–08), p. 260. 54 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 21 Number 1

79. R. T. Baker, ‘The Waratah in Applied Art: the Period 1788 to 1900 (Melbourne, 1908), New South Wales Waratah’, Technical Gazette p. 380. New South Wales, 2(1) (1911), 24–32; Baker, 86. Ibid. ‘The Waratah in Applied Art: The Victorian 87. Ibid., p. 417. Waratah’, ibid., 2(1) (1912), 17–27; Baker, 88. Edward S. Sorenson, ‘The Wattle: Australia’s ‘The Waratah in Applied Art: Tasmanian National Flower’, The Lone Hand, September Waratah’, ibid., 2(2) (1912), 9–18. 1912, p. 388. 80. Baker, ‘The Waratah in Applied Art: The Vic- 89. Libby Robin and Jane Carruthers, ‘Taxonomic torian Waratah’, p. 14. Imperialism in the Battles for Acacia: Identity 81. Maiden, ‘The Botany of the Wattle’, The Lone and Science in South Africa and Australia’, Hand, September 1910, pp. 362–363. Transactions of the Royal Society of South 82. E. S. Emerson, ‘Australia’sAcacias: an Appre- Africa, 65 (2010), 27–31. ciation for “Wattle Day” (September 1st)’, The 90. Nigel Thrift, Spatial Formations (London, Lone Hand, September 1910, p. 355. 1996), p. 24. 83. Searle, op. cit. (n. 21), p. 3. 91. It was Maiden’s practice to report the tannic 84. Robert Burt and W. T. Williams, ‘Plant Intro- acid content as both a percentage of the sample, duction in Australia’, in Home, op. cit. (n. 2), and a percentage of the sample, once this had pp. 252–260. been soaked and the coarse material removed. 85. Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statis- 92. Compiled from ‘Register of Letters received tics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth 1897–8’. of Australia containing Authorative Statistics 93. Register of Letters Received, 1900–01; State 1901 to 1907 and Corrected Statistics for Records of NSW, 19/17192–98.

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