INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN PLANTS INTO INDIA. 163 



ments promoting the introduction of valuable plants 

 into the countries over which they rule can scarcely be 

 questioned. In India, particularly, the duty of acting 

 upon these views is enjoined by peculiar reasons. The 

 productive powers of the soil will give every advan- 

 tage to the attempt of those disposed to call them 

 forth, and the people being accustomed so generally 

 to a vegetable diet, renders it important to secure 

 to them, as large a supply and as great a variety of 

 such diet as possible. The occurrence of those 

 severe visitations of Providence, by which the hap- 

 piness of the people is for the time destroyed, and 

 even the preservation of existence rendered almost 

 impossible, calls imperatively for the adoption of 

 any measures, such as the introduction of plants less 

 dependent on rain, which might tend to avert such 

 calamities, or alleviate their effects. The commer- 

 cial position of India requires a large amount of 

 exchangeable productions, and these must be raised 

 from the soil, for it is to agriculture that India must 

 look for the means of engaging in commerce. 



Carried to its legitimate extent, the plan for the (;rpat oxt<>iit 



to which the 



enrichment of India by such vegetable productions omanumay 



be carried. 



as are adapted to the country would be a most 

 extensive one ; for, as is observed by Dr. Lindley. 



