LANDSCAPE HARDENING IN NATIVE STATES. 81 



and are, T was (old, principally exported to Bombay. About 

 two miles from the town the site reserved for the Victoria 

 Park ia reached. It forma partofthe Blur, an extensive stretch 

 of uncultivated land, principally covered with babool jungle, of 

 which an area of 450 acres was fenced in by an earthen embankment 

 during the lasl famine a few years ago, and, by the well-known libe- 

 ral it v of H. H. the Thakorc Sahcb, reserved for the formation of a 

 park, which His Highness is anxious should in every way be worthy 

 of the lii»li and distinguished name it bears. The natural conditions 

 are almost without exception in the highest degree favourable for 

 the formation of a park of unusual beauty. The great variety in the 

 surface, in a few places rising to hills of not inconsiderable elevations, 

 the beautiful natural lake surrounded by babool forest, the numerous 

 exceptionally fine trees, and not least the varied objects of interest 

 or picturesque effects in the surroundings, are all features that by a 

 considerate assistance of nature, a suitable selection of trees, and the 

 effective grouping and distribution of plantations, will make it pos- 

 sible to create a scenery of great aesthetic effect and of rare beauty, 

 without having recourse to any artificial means, which, unless em- 

 ployed with the very greatest skill, and executed on such a scale as 

 to compare favourably with the natural objects they are supposed to 

 represent, are generally in bad taste, and calculated to mar the effect 

 of natural park scenery. Several gardens, the European cemetery, 

 and a large plantation, chiefly consisting of casuarinas, also deserve 

 to be mentioned as bearing evidence of the great interest taken in 

 1 tec-planting, a feature which is also prominently noticed at Ghadechi, 

 the not very distant Railway depot, which can even boast of having 

 a public garden of its own, though this is Very small and unpre- 

 tentious. Xo visitor to the neighbourhood of Bhownuo;2:er can fail 

 to observe the splendid condition of the crops, principally cotton, and 

 tin iionally high state of agriculture, a not very common fea- 



t ure in India. It may perhaps interest the reader to learn that 

 Hhownugger possesses an incinerator, in which the town sweepino-s 

 and night-soil are by combustion rendered fit for supplying a most 

 valuable and largely-used manure. About ten miles distant from 

 Bhownugger, at Mohwar, the State possesses a very extensive plan- 

 tation of cocoanut-palms, date-palms, and bamboos, which I however 

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