lOI 



charge of them as soon as possible. In 1802 there were 19,000 

 nutmeg trees and 6,250 cloves in the Gardens and altogether about 

 33,000 spice plants in the island. 



The first nutmeg fruit and the first mangosteen in Penang were 

 produced in 1801. At this time Sir William Hunter, surgeon to the 

 East India Company, was in charge of the Gardens, with a staff of 

 fifty convicts. An account of the plants of Prince of Wales Island 

 from a manuscript, in the British Museum, was published recently 

 by the Editor in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal 

 Asi-atic Society, Vol. 53. It shows that a number of other plants of 

 a useful and ornamental character, many obviously sent from the 

 Moluccas by Smith, were cultivated in the spice gardens. Among 

 the plants recorded in this work and elsewhere are Cinnamon, 

 Pimento Coffee, Kaya Puteh, Colelava {sic, probably clove bark) 

 Kulit Lawan, Cinnamomiim, Kulit Lawan ^/)Teak, Loquat, Artahotrys 

 odoratissima, Canary nut, etc. 



Christopher Smith returned from the Moluccas and was appoin- 

 ted Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens in 1806, having sent to 

 Penang 71,266 nutmeg plants, 55,264 cloves and large quantities of 

 Canarium commune the Canary nut and Arenga saceharifera, the well 

 kn<^wn Kabong Palm. 



Capt. James Law, in his dissertation on the soil and agriculture 

 of Penang (1836), describes the position and area of the Gardens 

 thus : — " It comprised 130 acres of land lying on the slopes 

 which skirt the base of the hill near Amie's mills, a romantic spot 

 and well watered by a running stream called Ayer Puteh. It con- 

 tained 19,628 nutmegs from I to 4 years old, 3,460 being four years 

 old and 6259 clove trees, of which 669 were above six and under 

 7 years old." Hunter says the Gardens were in the valley of Ayer 

 Hitam. 



Sir George Leith was Lieut. Governor but was succeeded by Col. 

 R. T. Farquhar in 1 803, He appears to have been a reckless and 

 extravagant man, spending large sums on his own luxury and on 

 useless fortifications. 



Hunter seems to have left the island about 1803, and Smith died 

 in 1806, or soon after. 



The Gardens, which in 1804 to 1805 had a staff of 80 coolies and 

 cost $11,909.41, were sold at 12 days' notice by auction for $9,656. 

 The trees were dug up and carried off by the purchasers but most of 

 them died. So ended the first Gardens of Penang. 



From 1805 to 1822 Penang possessed no gardens, then at the 

 instance of Sir Stamford Raffles the second gardens wTre founded. 

 They were also situated at Ayer Hitam, and put under the charge of 

 a botanical school master, George Porter. These gardens existed till 

 1834, when Governor Murchison who took no interest in gardens or 

 agriculture sold them for 1,250 rupees because his wife could not get 

 enough vegetables from them to diminish the cost of her cook's bills, 

 and so ended the second Penang Gardens. 



