TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 915 
I have divided my sketch ever did any serious work amongst non-vascular Crypto- 
gams. During the second period two men have done gallant work under difficulties 
which no one who has not lived in a tropical country can thoroughly appreciate. L 
refer to Drs. Arthur Barclay and D. D. Cunningham, The former made some 
progress in the study of Uredinous fungi, which was cut short by his untimely 
death, while the latter, in addition to his bacterial and other researches con- 
nected with the causation of human disease, conducted protracted investigations 
into some diseases of plants of fungal or algal origin. Some of the results of Dr. 
Cunningham’s labours were published in the ‘Transactions’ of the Linnean 
Society, and in a series entitled the ‘ Scientific Memoirs, by Medical Officers of the 
Indian Army.’ To the ‘ Annals of the Botanic Garden, Calcutta,’ Dr. Cunningham 
also contributed elaborate memoirs on the phenomena of Nyctitropism, and on the 
mode of fertilisation in an Indian species of Ficus (F. Roxburghii). There is no 
doubt that in the past Cryptogamic Botany has not been studied in India as it ought 
to have been and might have been. This discredit will, I hope, be soon removed ; 
and I trust that, by the time the twentieth century opens, a Cryptogamist may 
have been appointed to the staff of the Calcutta Botanic Garden. The collecting 
of Cryptogams was not, however, altogether neglected in India in times past. For, 
from materials sent to England, Mitten was able to elaborate a Moss Flora of India, 
while Berkeley and Browne were enabled to prepare their account of the Fungi of 
Ceylon. Dr.George Wallich, in whom the Botanical genius of his father burnt with 
a clear though flickering flame, did some excellent work amongst Desmids, and was 
among the earliest of deep-sea dredgers. 
Economic Botany has, on the other hand, by no means been neglected. It was 
chiefly on economic grounds that the establishment of a Botanic Garden at Calcutta 
was pressed upon the Court of Directors of the East India Company. And almost 
every one of the workers whose labours I have alluded to has incidentally devoted 
some attention to the economic aspect of Botany. Roxburgh’s ‘ Flora Indica’ 
contains all that was known up to his day of the uses of the plants described in 
it. Much of Wight’s time was spent in improving the races of cotton grown in 
India. The Botanists of the Seharunpore Garden during the middle of the 
century were especially prominent in this branch of Botanical activity. Royle 
wrote largely on cotton and on other fibres, on drugs, and on various vegetable 
products used, or likely to be of use, in the arts. These Botanists introduced into 
the Himalayas more than fifty years ago the best European fruits, From gardens 
which owe their origin to Royle, Falconer, and Jameson, excellent apples grown 
in Gharwal and Kamaon are to-day purchasable in Calcutta. Peaches, nectarines, 
grapes, strawberries, of European origin, are plentiful and cheap all over the North- 
West Himalaya, and are obtainable also in the submontane districts. Potatoes, 
and all the best European vegetables, were introduced long ago; and at Seharun- 
pore there is still kept up a large vegetable garden from which seeds of most 
Suropean vegetables are issued for cultivation during the cold season in the 
gardens of the various regiments of the Queen’s troops quartered in Upper India. 
More or less attention has been given in the past by Government Botanists in 
India generally to the improvement of the cultivation of flax, hemp, rheea, tobacco, 
henbane, dandelion, vanilla, sarsaparilla, coffee (Arabian and Liberian), cocoa, 
ipecacuanha, aloes, jalap, indiarubber, Japanese paper-mulberry, cardamoms, 
tapioca, coca, tea, and cinchona. Only to three economic enterprises, however, 
have I time to allude in any detail. These are (1) the cultivation of tea, (2) the 
introduction of cinchona, and (8) the formation of the Forest Department. But 
before proceeding to the consideration of these I wish to give a short account of the 
inauguration of the office of Reporter on Economic Products. Up to the year 1883 
there had been no special Government department in India for dealing with ques- 
tions connected with the natural products of the Empire. Whatever had been 
done prior to that date (and the amount was by no means unimportant) was the 
result of isolated and uncoérdinated effort. In 1883 the Government of India 
founded a department for dealing with the Economic Products of the Indian 
Empire, and under the title of Reporter on these products they were fortunate 
enough to secure Dr, George Watt, a member of the Bengal Educational Service. 
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