THE CALCUTTA GAEDEN 9 



repay the trouble of collating. There were abundant dupli- 

 cates of almost everything : 



Half the day Thomson and I spend over the huge supple- 

 mental Indian collections, most of which are mere lumber, 

 and we are burning cartloads of specimens. . . . For now 

 12 years we have been groaning over collections from 

 India, and we still have Falconer's and Wight's to do. 



His active interest in the Calcutta Gardens had continued 

 unabated since his first visit hi 1847. From the first he would 

 have liked to see them moved to a more convenient position, 

 say at Alipur. Opportunity of pressing the point came in 

 1867. At the end of the year Anderson wrote reporting the 

 destruction wrought by a terrific cyclone ; if the Gardens be 

 reconstituted, it should be nearer Calcutta. To have the 

 Botanic Garden where it would be accessible to students of the 

 Medical College and to the public, would be an immense boon, 

 Hooker knew, and he replies : 



I immediately wrote a leader for Gardeners'] C[hronicle] 

 in which, with my usual stupidity, I put the Garden on the 

 wrong side of the river ! It is a constitutional disease with 

 me not to know right hand from left till I stop to think. 



I have consulted Thomson, Sir Lawrence Peel and others, 

 and all think the principal Botanical Establishment, Library, 

 Herbarium and a good type-named Garden Collection should 

 be at or near Calcutta, nearer than Garden Eeach, and a 

 noble large general Garden perhaps at Darjiling or elsewhere 

 in hills on rail to Calcutta. 



February 19, 1868. I continue to sympathise most deeply 

 in the matter of the Calcutta Garden, and will co-operate 

 gladly to the extent of anything short of having no Botanical 

 Establishment at Calcutta. 



You ask if I and Thomson ' will urge you to remove the 

 site.' We will gladly do anything in reason, but you must 

 mature a plan first. I suppose that you could not come 

 home for 6 weeks and discuss it here ? Govt. deputing 

 you ? It is a matter of vital importance. If you could come 

 at the British Association time we could do a stroke of 

 work. 



