990 Report on subjects connected with Afghanistan. [No. 120. 



not wish to disparage such attempts, but it appears to me that 

 in all such inquiries there are certain requisite preliminary consider- 

 ations to which no attention is generally paid in India. In Afghan- 

 istan, we have a considerable increase of latitude, accompanied by 

 a considerable increase in altitude, at least so far as the great fruit 

 districts are concerned. We have a cold or a very severe winter, 

 during which, and also about the vernal equinox, snow or rain falls 

 to a considerable amount, constituting as it were a sort of monsoon. 

 This is succeeded by an almost absolutely dry summer and autumn, 

 during which the sun exercises an unchecked and powerful influence. 

 These tvvo last circumstances are, I believe, essential to the perfection 

 of what we call the later European fruits. In what part of the 

 continent of India can these circumstances be found } We may 

 command elevation, but in no Indian climate known to me can we 

 command a cold winter, a genial spring, and a fine summer. In 

 India on the plains, the spring months are very hot, and the time of 

 ripening of the later and better fruits falls in the rainy season. The 

 Coromandel coast agrees with Afghanistan in the distribution of the 

 rainy and fine months, but in no other circumstance. If we go to 

 the hills, we become exposed to an increased severity of summer 

 rain. 



No fruit-bearing plant of Afghanistan can, I think, be reconciled 

 with any success to such extremes. It is curious that Peshawur, 

 which has an Afghan climate, so far as rainy winter months and a 

 dry summer are concerned, does not possess, perhaps, a single supe- 

 rior European fruit. Can we infer from this, that a certain amount 

 of winter cold is required for the attainment of excellence.? With 

 Bengal Proper, I would not advise interchanges to be made. If it 

 be considered advisable to introduce the Afghan fruits into the N. W. 

 provinces, which have a very different cold weather and rainy season 

 from those of Bengal, I would beg to suggest that the introduction 

 be carried on from Candahar. I find on referring to my journal, that 

 grapes and musk melons were coming into season about the 15th or 

 20th June. This is about the period of the setting in of the rains in the 

 N. W. as about Merut ; but the smaller amount of cold of the Indian 

 winter, and the greater amount of heat of the spring, would doubtless 

 cause the ripening to occur earlier, so that the fruits would be exempt 



