1915] 



HILL BOTANIC GARDENS 213 



But most important of all was the part played by the Garden 

 in the introduction of Cinchona'^ from South America to India 

 with the cooperation of Kew, and the subsequent cultivation 

 of Peruvian bark in the Sikkim Himalaya. The Calcutta 

 Garden in this particular has retained the ancient connection 

 of botanic gardens with medicine perhaps more than any 

 other similar institution. The cultivation of the quinine- 

 yielding cinchonas has been carried to such a successful issue 

 in the plantation and factory at Sikkim under the superintend- 

 ents of the Garden, notably Sir George King, that government 

 hospitals and dispensaries have for years been supplied from 

 this source with all the quinine required for them; while 

 5-grain doses of the same drug can be purchased for a pice 

 each (equal to about ^d. English) at every post-office in the 

 Province.^ 



Associated with the Garden are the valuable herbarium and 

 the economic museums, the whole forming an institution capa- 

 ble of responding fully to the botanical requirements of the 

 Indian Empire. 



The history of botanic gardens would be incomplete without 

 reference being made to the foundation of such institutions 

 in Malaya and Ceylon. At Penang^ the Hon. East India 

 Company decided to start spice gardens with a view of break- 

 ing down the Dutch monopoly. Living plants of nutmegs and 

 cloves were collected in the Moluccas in 1796, and the first 

 nutmegs were produced in Penang in 1801. 



The Gardens, however, were destroyed* in 1805, and re- 

 founded in 1822 at the instance of Sir Stamford Raffles. He 

 it was who founded the Singapore Gardens in 1823, and intro- 



' See Markham, Sir C. R. Peruvian Bark. London, 1880. 

 ' Guide to Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta p. 6. 1902. [Revised ed.] 

 » Ridley, H. N. The abolition of the Botanic Gardens of Penang. Agr. Bull. 

 Straits and Fed. Malay States 9: p. 97. 1910. 

 *Ibid. p. 104. 



founded abolished 



First Penang garden 1800 1805 



Second Penang garden 1822 1826 



Third Penang garden 1884 1910 



First Singapore garden 1823 1829 



Second Singapore garden 1878 and still existing. 



