io LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



painful overwork between, with only a few handfuls of 

 powdered wheat, taken with water as chance allowed. With 

 broken health apparently a slight stroke of paralysis he 

 was thus compelled to take two years of medical leave, which 

 he spent mainly in Calcutta, where his son was by this time 

 at College. Here too his busy brain could not rest. He 

 had always seen the need of promoting Indian agriculture 

 and industry : and as for such a man thought is inseparable 

 from action, he more and more invested in active enter 

 prise the considerable savings of his career, supplemented 

 as these were from home property and by family inheritance. 

 He acquired land in the Terai and set about clearing and 

 stock farming ; but despite the excellence of some of the 

 produce, it lay too far from markets, and the land was 

 unhealthy as well. The enterprise therefore ended with loss. 

 Tea-planting was also then beginning : he saw its possibilities 

 and argued If Scotsmen can face such enterprises and such 

 climate, why should not Indians do the same ? So he 

 acquired a couple of thousand acres in Assam. Large expen- 

 diture was needed for clearing and planting, and this again 

 in unhealthy conditions ; additional capital had to be 

 borrowed at high interest, far more than the slowly begin- 

 ning returns of tea could meet : thus anxieties, losses, dis- 

 appointments, year after year. At length, though unhappily 

 not in his time, this pioneering has prospered, and the 

 plantation has for a good many years been increasingly 

 successful ; first in the hands of an Indian manager, and 

 now of sons of his daughters, effective in their turn. 



The final disaster was that of a weaving company in 

 Bombay which Mr. Bose had been persuaded by high 

 and patriotic promises, anticipating those of the later 

 Swadeshi movement, to support with his remaining capital. 

 With this the directors then absconded, leaving no trace. 



Still the sufferer was not embittered by his disasters ; 

 and at the expiry of his long sick leave he resumed his 

 official duties, this time at Pabna, where he worked on for 

 four or five years longer, till the age of retirement. We 



