FROM PATNA TO DARJEELING. 281 
and so are Peas, Beans, &c. Strawberries are now but in flower ; and 
Raspberries, Currants, and Gooseberries will not grow at all. 
The seed-room, a well-lighted and boarded apartment, measuring 
forty-six feet by twenty-four, is a model of what the arrangement of 
such buildings should be in this climate. The seeds are all deposited 
in dry bottles, carefully labelled, and hung in rows, round the apart- 
ment, to the walls; and for cleanliness and excellence of kind they 
would bear comparison with the best seedsman’s drawers in London. 
Of English garden-vegetables and varieties of the Indian Cerealia, and 
Leguminous plants, Indian corn, Millets, Rice, &c., the collections for 
distribution were excellent; and I am promised samples of all these 
for Kew by my liberal friend Major Napleton, as well as other economie 
products of the district. 
Altogether the Bhaugulpore Gardens are extremely good, and con- 
t 
tached to the Calcutta Botanic Gardens. In most respects the esta- 
blishment is a model of what such institutions ought to be in India ; not 
only of real practical value, in affording a good and cheap supply of the 
best culinary and other vegetables that the climate can produce, but 
as shewing to what departments such efforts are best directed. They 
diffuse a taste for the most healthy employments, and offer an elegant 
resource for the many unoccupied hours which the Englishman in India 
finds upon his hands. They are also schools of gardening; and a 
simple inspection of what has been done at Bhaugulpore is a long and 
valuable lesson to any person about to establish a private garden of his 
own. 
I omitted to mention that the manufacture of ceconomic products is 
not neglected. Excellent coffee is grown; and arrow-root, equal to the 
best West Indian, is prepared, at ls. 6d. per bottle of twenty-four 
ounces,—about a fourth of the price of that article in Calcutta. 
Another very interesting garden, though, of course, on a less BI 
tending scale, is a private one belonging to Mr. Pontet, an enthusi- 
astic horticulturist, and who has established many valuable plants from 
the Rajmahal hills, in his grounds. He has also a good collection of 
20 
