September i, i89o.,1 tHE TROPICAL AO'RlOtJLTiJRlST, 
to beguile us by pen and pencil. It is true that 
when we entered Bombay’s magnificent harbour at 
suQri.se, and I saw the towering groves of Palmyras 
(Borassus flabelliformis), that stand like giant sen- 
tinels on the amphitheatre of hills overlooking the 
harbour, I began to think that the dream of my life 
of seeing a tropical Jungle would soon be realised. 
The same day I visited the Victoria Gardens and 
others among the principal ga-dens of Bombay, and 
I was enchanted with all I saw, f('r though it was 
Novembei , the gardens were at their climax of beauty ; 
their spring-tide of flower, in fact, after the mon.soon, 
as the long rainy season is termed. 
I think it is pardonable in a young gardener if, 
on first seeing a tropical garden, he goes wild with 
delight, and otherwise shows signs of temporary 
insanity. I have a distinct recollection of being in 
that condition when I entered the Victoria gardens 
in Bombay, and saw growing in the greatest luxu- 
riance in the open air plants that from childhood I 
had been accustomed to see cribbed in pot, and confined 
in a glass-house. So groat is the difference between 
pot-grown plants in a stove and those growing in 
nurestrained vigor iu the tropics, that they are often 
scarcely recognisab'e, and I blushed at my ignorance 
when, on asking the names of certain plants, Mr. 
Oarstenson, the Curator, mentioned the most familiar 
names. The things that struck me most were such 
well-known stove climbers as Bougainv'lteas, Bignonias, 
Allamandas, Ipomceas, Passifloras, which send their 
lissom shoots from t>ee to tree just as the Travel- 
ler’s Joy and Honeysuckles do in our hedgerows, 
and the brilliant colour they give to an Indian 
garden scene is quite indescribable — it must be seen 
to be understood. The groves of tall Palms give 
support to shade-loving Bhilodendrons and other 
clinging Aroids, and in the shade below grows a 
multitude of smaller things — Pancratiums, Crinums, 
Alooasias, various Bromeliads, Begonias, and such- 
like, while there is a dense lawn-bke carpet of the 
creeping little Artillery plant, Pilea mnscosa, or 
whatever its latest name may be. I could not better 
describe the Palm grove than by comparing it with 
the central part of the Palm- house at Kew, supposing 
the roof was away, and the big Palms spaced out 
more widely. 
What we term “ fine-foliage ” plants are no less 
remarkable, erpeciahy the higher-coloured shrubs, like 
Croton, Acalypha, Caladium, Dracaena ; for there 
they develop such rich tints, especially the Crotons, 
that even the famous Liverpool Croton growers 
could not approach. I saw a shrubbery of Crotons — 
a hundred or more — planted in the full sun, close to 
a wall at one of the railwaj stations : and I thought 
I had never seen such a marvellous sight in the way 
of leaf-colour ; and the sorts included most of the 
newest^ — all dense, symmetrically grown specimens. 
I thought of Mr. Baines and his famous elephant ” 
specimens, the result of years of patient skill, when 
I saw in a sample forecourt in the Bombay suburbs 
some gignntic specimens, faultless in training, and 
crowded with bloom, of Ixotas, Jasminum sambac, 
Bignonia vruusta. Bougainvillea leteritia, Petrea 
volufailis, and others. The owner, a railway man 
from Laooashire, seemed unaware that he was doing 
anything very remarkable ; he liked flowers, and liked 
to see the front garden “ look a bit smart. ” 
It is not only in the Victoria Gardens that one sees 
such luxuriant vegetation, but you see it everywhere 
— in the city gardens, of which the Elphinstone Circle 
Carden is a noteworthy example; in the Port where 
European commercial life is carried on ; as well as on 
the picturesque height known as Malabar Hill where 
the wealthy natives as well as Europeans have their 
bungalows, and, in most instances, beawitul gardens 
about them ; but all this is due to the perpetually 
moist atmosphere and high temperature th.at prevails 
throughout the year, so th.at when yon leave the sea- 
girt islaud of Bombay and its Ceco-uut woods, you 
enter upon quite different scenery whichever dirr-ction 
you take. Going south towards M>idras, you have 
to climb the ghauts, as the western range of mountains 
are callcdj and there you geo Nature’s gardening iu 
its grandeur, until you reach Poonah, and beyond 
that city you pass through the trackless wastes of 
the Deccan. Going up country towards Guzerat, the 
train takes you through a marvellously rich Agricultural 
country, where the fields of Cotton and cereals are 
nuasured by the square mile. On towards Baroda, 
loit come to what is aptly called the “garden of 
Incis,,” where the rich farm lands are interspersed 
with magnificent timber trees, where the Tamarind 
and the Mango give a distinctive feature to the 
Isndscape, diw rsified now and again by natural groves 
of the Toddy Palm (Phoenix sylvestrisj and Palmyras, 
and this kind of scenery goes on in a more or less 
varied way right through the vast stretches on to 
the Punjaub and the North West. 
It is thus that the stranger derives his first impres- 
sions of India, and if he enters it by the other great 
gateway, the opening scene is even more impressive 
as he goes 100 miles up the Hooghly before reaching 
Calcutta. The banks of the Hooghly are typical of an 
Indian pngle, abounding iu vegetation of the wildest 
de>cription, and where the tiger, moreover, is not a 
stranger. 
The further you go inland the less tropical the 
vegetation becomes, and the more difficult it is to 
make and maintain gardens, and the difficulties attend- 
ing gardening, in the sense that we understand the 
term, accounts for the comparative rarity of fine ex- 
amples. These difficulties arise purely from climatic 
causes, the long period of drought and the excessive 
rainfall spread over a comparatively short period. It 
is, indeed, notan easy matter to maintain an inland 
garden in freshness from one monsoon to another, which 
interval varies from eight to nine months. But by the 
ordinary native system of irrigation, much may be 
done ; and those who can afford a more costly system, 
can keep their lawns green throughout the year. 
As regards the subject-matter of these discursive 
notes of gardening in India, I think it best to divide 
it, as methodical London did in his Encyclopadia of 
Gardeninr), where he treats on the state of gardening 
in different countries. His divisions are — gardening as 
an art of taste and design, and gardening as an art of 
culture. As regards India, so far as my scant knowledge 
goes, there is very little to say about one, and a great 
deal, more than 1 can go into here, about the other. 
About the gardens I taw, the majority exemplified very 
little design, and the tasteful bits resulted more from 
accident than design. Europeans unquestionably are 
leaving their marks everywhere about the country in 
the matter of gardens, as well as on the buildings, and 
every thing else ; but the want of intimate knowledge 
of the principles of design are too apparent. The 
fact is, that in India, as indeed in this country, too, 
everybody thinks that he can lay out a garden, a 
simple matter say they, what is there in it? The 
results too often show that there is a good deal iu it. 
But in India this is more excusable, because iirofessional 
gardeners are scarce, and very rarely you find a native 
capable of designing even a flower plot well. Conse- 
quently, you get the military officer or the civil servant 
with spare time, essaying to do what he knows very 
little about ; but for that matter he would build you 
a steam-engine or make a fiddle, for a man in India 
must be more or less a “ Jack-of-all-trades.” I heard 
of a German out there wbo qualified himself for a 
landscape gardener by being an expert at house-decorat- 
ing, ai d sure enough he transferred his elegant scrolls 
and aimless contortions to the walk.s and roads of a 
public garden he designed. Among the gardens that 
stand out prominently as fine examples, are the great 
public gardens of Calcutta and Bombay, the botanical 
garden in the former place being probably the finest 
in the world ; while remarkable also are the Govern- 
ment House gardens at Barrackpore, and the picture.sque 
Eden Gardens. 0 hose in the Nilgherries at Ooioca- 
mund and Bangalore, favoured as they are by a 
delightful mountain clim.ate, are highly spoken of by 
everyone who has seen tin m. The gardens at Poonah, 
which, like the other great centres has been long under 
the influence of the British, are famous throughout 
India, for the climate there favours the growth of 
plants that will not thrive in the pLiics. I y as tputh 
