Sept,  i,  1896.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
197 
angle  that  would  be  liable  to  injury.  We  offer  the 
suggestion  witliout  expressing  any  opinion  as  to 
whether  the  idea  could  be  practically  worked  out. 
THE  ROYAL  BOTANIC  CARDENS, 
CALCUTTA. 
By  Wm.  Mair. 
Calcutta’s  Botanic  Carden  would  gladden  the 
heart  of  Examiner-Piofessor  Patrick  Ceddes, 
foremost  in  the  Renaissance  of  Botany,  the 
growing  school  of  bionomics  or  plant-life  study, 
“ Prianzenleben,”  as  they  call  it  in  the  botanical 
atmosphere  of  Strasburg.  The  “ mercurial  pro- 
fessor ” — to  quote  an  apt  cpitliet  which  the  ver- 
satile Zangwill  lately  apjilied  to  the  founder  of 
the  newer  Renaissance  of  Celtic  culture,  would 
find  that  for  once  the  canons  of  taste  in  garden- 
ing he  admires  so  ill,  that  find  expression  in 
crewel-work  patterns  and  in  schemes  of  colour 
that  might  as  effectually  be  wrought  out  by 
the  judicious  use  of  pots  of  paint  in  ])rimary 
colours,  had  been  quite  departed  from.  There 
are  picturesque  groups  of  closely -allied  families 
of  plants,  clumps  of  bamboos  and  other  genera 
of  tropical  monocotyledons,  mostly  evergreens  of 
vivid  hue ; green  lawns  interspersed  with  sheets 
of  ornamental  water,  gorgeous  with  Victoria  regia 
or  the  white-flowered  Padma  water-lily  (Nebimbium 
speciosum)  beloved  of  the  gods  ; splendid  avenues 
of  palms,  “ their  tilted  heads  like  draggled  plumes 
against  the  sky”;  and  stately  Indian  trees  and 
elegant  shrubs  affording  necessary  shade  in  a 
land  where  it  is  summer  every  Aay,  for  more 
delicate  members  of  the  great  floral  community. 
There  also  pretty  borders  of  annuals  which  blos- 
som gaily  in  our  cold  weather  months,  happy 
remainder  of  home  gardens.  But  there  is  no 
attempt  at  arrangement  in  the  natural  orders 
of  the  books : it  would  be  impracticable  with 
such  a profusion  of  variety  ; the  fifiant  teak  and 
the  slender  verbena,  for  instance,  would  hardly 
make  graceful  consorts.  The  attempt  was  once 
actually  made  by  a young  superintendent  of  the 
garden,  whose  botanical  zeal  exceeded  his  good 
judgment,  to  convert  the  garden  into  a botanical 
class-book.  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  K.c.s.i. , records 
(Himalayan  journals)  that  when  he  visited  the 
fdace  in  1848  “ nothing  was  to  be  seen  of  its 
ormer  beauty  and  grandeur  but  a few  noble  trees 
or  graceful  palms  rearing  their  heads  over  a low 
ragged  jungle  or  spreading  their  broad  leaves  or 
naked  limbs  over  the  forlorn  hope  of  a botanical 
garden,  that  consisted  of  open  clay  beds,  disposed 
into  concentric  circles,  and  baking  into  brick 
under  the  fervid  heat  of  a Bengal  sun.”  The 
general  scheme  of  the  garden  has  always  been 
economic  as  much  as  purely  botanical  and  orna- 
mental, but  in  its  present  highly  efficient  con- 
dition, to  which  it  has  been  brought  by  its  present 
superintendent.  Dr.  George  King,  c.i.E.,  F.R..S., 
although  only  a suggestion  of  what  it  will  become 
it  is  one  of  the  brightest  spots  in  the  East. 
The  garden  is  quite  modern.  It  was  founded  over 
a hundred  years  .ago  by  the  Honourable  John 
Company,  but  tlie  cyclones  of  1864  and  1867  made 
a clean  sweep  of  everything  in  it  except  the 
great  banyan  tree  to  be  described  hereafter,  some 
sacred  peepuls,  and  a few  mahogany  trees.  It 
is  272  acres  in  extent,  just  about  as  laige  as 
Kew  now  is,  and  lias  exactly  a mile  of  frontage 
to  the  river  Hooghly.  It  is  four  miles  out  of 
town,  and  is  a favourite  rendezvous  witii  jieople  of 
the  “City  of  Palaces” — which  are  mostly  stucco 
ones,  by  the  way — on  the  numerous  holidays 
bestowed  by  the  Hindu  and  Christian  calendars 
upon  Anglo-Indians,  pharmacists,  of  course, 
excepted. 
It  is  classic  ground  to  the  botanist.  Roxburgh, 
father  of  Indian  botany  (the  Indi.an  Linnams), 
was  su|)erientendent  here,  and  Wallich,  Falconer, 
.lack,  Grillith,  and  Royle  are  among  the  many 
great  names  that  are  perpetuated  in  its  memorial 
monuments  or  its  avenues  ; while  one  or  two  of 
the  latter  are  name  in  honour  living  botanists, 
the  Hooker  Avenue  after  tlie  distinguished  author 
of  tlie  “ Flora  of  British  India,”  grand  old  veteran 
still  at  80 ; and  the  Dyer  Avenue,  in  some 
measure  of  acknowledgment  of  the  good  friend- 
ship of  Kew  and  its  learned  director. 
Although  the  range  of  cultivation  is  naturally 
very  extensive,  and  the  utility  of  the  garden 
botanically,  horticulturally,  and  agriculturally 
correspondingly  great,  amongst  its  greatest  triumphs 
may  te  considered  the  introduction  of  tea  to 
Assam  and  the  Lower  Himalaya  from  China, 
and  acclimatisation  of  cinchona  in  British  Sikkim, 
it  is  remarkable  that  the  climate  of  Lower 
Bengal  is  quite  unsuited  to  the  growth  of  very 
many,  even  tropical,  species.  One  of  the  greatest 
benefits  bestowed  on  India  by  the  garden  in 
its  early  years  was  the  demonstration  by  prac- 
tical exi^eriment  that  many  desirable  economic 
products  and  exotic  plants  of  econom'c  interest 
cannot  be  grown  in  that  portion  of  the  Gangetic 
delta  represented  by  its  soil.  Thus,  one  of  the 
things  the  honourable  merchantmen  had  in  view 
at  its  foundation  was  that  the  spices,  the  pepper- 
vines,  the  nutmegs,  and  the  cloves,  which  had 
once  made  the  trade  of  the  company  with  the 
Moluccas  so  valuable,  might  be  cultivated  in 
Bengal  as  an  additional  source  of  wealth  to 
that  resourceful  province,  but  this  was  soon 
proved  to  be  impossible.  Similarly,  the  teak  tree 
[Tectona  grancUs)  proved  a disappointment.  In 
later  years  an  anticipated  .scarcity  of  ipecacu- 
anha, so  indispensable  in  dysentery  in  India, 
led  to  the  attempt  to  establish  that  humble 
creeper  in  the  garden  and  in  India.  The  “ Phar- 
macographia”  recoids  that  up  to  1879  success 
was  still  “problematical,”  and  it  cannot  be  said 
even  now  to  have  passed  out  of  the  experimental 
stage  in  which  it  h.as  been  for  thirty  years. 
Coca  and  one  or  two  species  of  strophanthus 
are  at  present  under  trial  ; one  of  the  latter, 
S.  (hchotovms,  a climbing-plant,  has  curious,  long, 
ringlet-like  tassels  hanging  down  from  the  edges 
of  the  corollas. 
The  m.ateria-medicist  finds  much  that  is  in- 
tensely interesting  and  much  that  is  complementary 
to  the  text-books  in  a visit  to  such  a garden 
as  this.  Here  are  Cassia  fistula,  the  Indian 
laburnum,  uncommonly  beautiful  in  its  long 
jiendulous  racemes  of  large  bright-yellow  flowers 
or  with  its  familiar  legumes  a yard  long ; the 
gurjun  tree  {Dipterocarpus  alatus),  straight  as  a 
shii»’s  mast  and  branchless  for  60  feet,  and  ,a 
small  specimen  at  that ; the  s.acred  bael  (^qle 
Marmelos)  ; the  nux-vomica  tree,  with  its  lozenge- 
like seeds  emheddetl  in  the  pulp  of  its  beauti- 
ful orange-coloured  fruit  which  contains  strych- 
nine, but  is  nevertheless  eaten  with  avidity  by 
the  liornbills  and  the  monkeys  ; the  hand.some 
evergreen,  lamaiindns  inclica  ; Butea  frondosa, 
the  Bengal  kino  and  the  real  kino  tree  of  Ma- 
labar {Pterocarpus  Marsup! um),  which  might  easily 
be  cultivated  extensively  in  Bengal  and  thereby 
make  the  drug  less  luxuriously  expensive  ; and 
(piite  a museum  of  o',  hers.  An  interesting  group 
of  myrtaceous  trees  on  one  of  a number  of 
.artificial  mounds,  for  the  ground  naturally  is  ns 
flat  as  a pancake,  includes,  be.sides  such  species 
of  micalyptus  as  will  grow  in  the,  to  them,  un- 
congenial clim.ate  of  Bengal,  a number  of  healthy 
specimens — all  are  well  and  prominently  labellecf 
