April t, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
659 
notably ten years ago, when the shed in which the 
Office "and Committee business was conducted was 
turned into what it is now,— a house filled with 
beautiful and luxuriant ferns; the Office was trans- 
ferred to what was till then the Superintendent's 
house ; a comfortable house was built for the Superin- 
tendent in the Experimental Garden on the other 
side of the Cathedral Road ; and the Red Hills water 
was carried through the Gardens to the native huts 
beyond. All pecuniary difficulties were, however, from 
time to time tided over by a small extra grant from 
Government ; by the liberality of the Society's bankers ; 
or by the zeal of the Secretary for the time being 
enabling the Society to save the pay of a profes- 
sional Superintendent, and to let his house at a 
monthly rent. 
In 1837, at the time of Her Majesty's Accession, the 
work of the Society was in full swing, and very 
successful efforts were being made to improve by the 
distribution of better seed the class of cotton grown 
in the various districts of the Presidency,— efforts 
which ripened their fruit when the American War 
closed the ports of the Southern (States to the buy- 
ers at Liverpool, Manchester, and elsewhere. In the 
same year some tea plants rtceived from China were 
forwarded by the Society t > Mysore and the Neil- 
cherry Hills, and it is believed that some of these 
very plants still survive in the neighbourhood of 
( 'oouoor, so that Neilgherry tea, one of the most impor- 
tant products of Southern India of the present day, 
is now also celebrating its jubilee. The following 
year a supply of Mauritius sugar-cane was obtained 
through the Board of Revenue, propagated, and subse- 
quently distributed. Prior to, and during the year 
1840, when Mr. Glasson opened the first coffee plantation 
in Wynaad, the Society struggled to grow coffee 
profitably in Madras, and freely distributed it in plants 
and seeds to more favourably situated places. During 
the next few years records are found of the intro- 
duction of European and West Indian fruit trees, 
some of which doubtless still thrive, or have _ been 
displaced by their descendants, or by superior varieties. 
More than" one species of mulberry was introduced 
to feed and improve the silkworms, and wonderful 
strides were made in the cultivation of indigenous 
and foreign culinary vegetables now classed generally, 
and consumed even by the poor, as "country vegeta- 
bles." In 1844 an attempt was made to introduce 
the use of guano as manure, and a valuable collec- 
tion of Australian seeds reached the Society. In 1850 
the Society successfully sent a case of grafted mango 
plants to Sir William Hooker at Kew ; and seeds of 
the valuable hurrialee grass, the staple food of Madras 
horses, was transmitted to Australia and the Cape of 
Good Hope. In 1853 the Society was largely engaged in 
raising and distributing vast numbers of the Casuarina 
for planting on the sand dunes on the coast north 
and south of Madras, now the source of almost the 
whole fuel supply of town — the power which moves the 
railway engine and the spinning mill, cooks the rich 
man's banquet, and the poor man's rice. 
It is possibly invidious to select a few items of 
good work such as those mentioned above, but it is 
necessary, as to do more than mention the Society's 
experiments with cinchona and spices, fruits and flow- 
ers, drugs and tanning materials, fibre, plants and 
dye stuffs, cereals aud forage plants, would fill many 
pages. The Society's Nurseries now contain thou- 
sands of such plants for distribution. The work of 
the Society is borne in upon the senses from every 
garden and hedgerow in the area as large as Paris 
which goes by the name of Madras Town; and many 
of the commonest plants of the roadside are foreigners 
that were distributed, if not originally introduced by 
the Society, within the last five years. A stroll round 
the Society's Garden, limited in extent though they 
are, is one of unceasing interest. On every aide are 
hundreds of species of the most useful and beautiful 
of tropical flora ; creepers, and harbaceous plants in 
such rampaut growth and luxuriance of leaf and 
flower as are seen only amidst the warmth of the tro- 
pics ; indigenous plants, which though doubtless abun- 
dant fifty years, ago in the immediate neighbourhood. 
are now, owing to the needs of the wood-cutter, to 
the scarcity of fuel, to the enormous increase of po- 
pulation, and to the voraoity of goats, rarely to be 
seen within many a mile of the town, are carefully 
preserved and propagated. Every |step in the Orna- 
mental Garden will unfold some new beauty to the 
tree-lover. The noble mahogany, from the West 
Indies; the lichee and the diospyros from China; 
the Moreton Bay chestnut; the elegant araucaria from 
Australia; the giant talipot from Ceylon; the grace- 
ful date from Arabia ; the stately cabbage palm from 
Brazil; the huge baobab, and endless others are to be 
seen. Shrubs too are not forgotten, such as the 
handsome South Sea Islands croton, with its quaint 
forms and variegations; the butter-cup-like ochna, 
once common but now rare in the jungles round 
Madras; jasmines and begonias of many sorts, and 
the sweet-scented gardenias and carissas. 
Of the illustrious names that have been connected 
with the Society much might be said. Since the 
Society was founded each successive Governor has 
accepted the position of Patron, and in later years 
Patron and President ; Commanders-in-Chief, Chief 
Justices, and Members of Council have often borne 
office; high officers of State have served on its Com- 
mittees; and distinguished botanists have worked as 
its Secretaries. AVallich, Royle, Wight. Roxburgh, 
Lindley, Thwaites, the Hookers, Trimen, Schomburgh, 
Von Miiller, Cleghorn, nnd many others have been 
its contributors. Nor should the services of the pro- 
fessional gardeners, who from time to time have been 
in charge of the gardens be forgotten. In 1853 
Mr. Jaffrey was sent out to the Society from the 
Caledonian Horticultural Garden, Edinburgh, and did 
good work for four years until he obtained a better 
engagement at Bangalore, after he had contributed 
to the science of gardening his well-known booklet, 
Hints to Amateur Gardeners in Madras. He was suc- 
ceeded by Mr. Bobert H. Brown, the author of the 
useful Handbook of the Trees, Shrubs, and. Herbaceous 
Plants growing in the. Society's Gardens and the 
Neighbourhood of Madras. Mr. Denham, Mr. Henry, 
Mr. Storey, and some others came out from England 
in their turn, and, after doing faithful work, left the 
service for better-paid appointments. The Society has 
for the last four years had the benefit of the assis- 
tance of Mr. J. M. Gleeson, who was sent out by 
the Secretary of State in 1869 to work at the Go- 
vernment cotton experiments in Central India, and 
who, besides the regular duties which he has loyally 
discharged, has compiled and published an admirable 
Catalogue of Plants in the Agai-Horticultural Society's 
Gardens, Madras, and is now engaged on other useful 
literary work. — (Extracted from the Narrative of the 
Celebration of the Jubilee of H. M. the Queen Empress 
in the Presidency of Madras). 
♦ 
c 'Kew Bulletin." — The January number of this 
periodical contains a valuable article on the Coca, 
Erythroxylon Coca, whose leaves are spoken of by 
many travellers for their valuable property of allaying 
the effects of fatigue after prolonged exertion, and 
which contain the alkaloid cocaine now used as a 
local anesthetic. The experiments made by the late 
Sir Robert Ohristison may be alluded to as confir- 
matory of the statements here repeated. Other arti- 
cles refer to beetles destructive to Rice crops in 
Burmah, to fibre procured from Honckenya ficifolia, 
a Tiliaceous plant from West Africa, to the Yam 
Bean, Pachyrhizus tuberosus, to Puya edulis, a starch- 
yielding Bromeliad, reported to have saved the lives 
during periods of famine of many people (especially 
Indian); and other plants. It will be seen that the 
Bulletin is mainly confined to economic botany, and 
to the work of Kew as the head-centre of Colonial 
botany. It is to be wished that some addition 
could be made to it, so as to have a record of matters 
relating to the current work of the garden and of 
interest to home gardeners and botanists. A resump- 
tion of the publication of authentic lists and synonyms 
of certain orders and genera is also much to be 
desired. — Gardt ners' Chronicle. 
