INTRODUCTION. 3 



great benefit to India generally, since many most valuable 

 plants became thus in a very short time thoroughly established, 

 and all but naturalized in the country. This gratuitous dis- 

 tribution, however, was eventually considered to be attended 

 with abuse ; in the first place, because some persons applied 

 for plants who, obtaining them for nothing, set no value on 

 them when they got them; and secondly, because so long as 

 plants could thus be obtained for nothing, no encouragement 

 was given to native nurserymen to cultivate them for sale. The 

 distribution was therefore discontinued. 



The Government Botanical Gardens at Saharunpore have 

 done for the North- West Provinces what the Botanical Gardens 

 at Calcutta have done for Bengal. Seeds and plants have been 

 issued from them without charge to all, indiscriminately, who 

 have applied for them. This has proved a great public benefit. 

 Indeed without such a resource to draw upon, private gardens 

 could hardly have been kept up with any degree of satisfaction. 



Next, the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India, 

 established between thirty and forty years ago, though it has, 

 it is true, effected comparatively little as regards the importa- 

 tion of new plants, has been of considerable benefit to India, by 

 the abundant supplies of seeds of flowering annuals and culinary 

 vegetables that it distributes each year to its members, as well 

 as by the gratuitous issue of ornamental plants, and the sale of 

 fruit trees from its garden. By means also of the three exhi- 

 bitions of flowers, fruits, and vegetables that it holds annually, 

 and at which prizes are liberally bestowed, it has created great 

 emulation among the native cultivators around Calcutta. To 

 this mainly is owing the abundant supply of remarkably fine 

 vegetables that may be seen in the markets there during the 

 cold months. 



Branch societies have likewise been established in different 

 parts of India ; for instance, at Cuttack, Baugulpore, Lucknow, 

 Delhi, Lahore, and other places. These have done much good 

 during the time they have been in existence, by forming public 

 gardens, holding horticultural shows, and distributing seeds and 

 plants. 



And lastly, private individuals have contributed, as far as 

 their limited means have allowed, to disseminate a taste for 

 gardening by the attractiveness of the well-stocked and orderly- 

 arranged gardens they have kept up, and by the display of the 

 choice plants which, often at considerable expense, they have 



B 2 



