November 4 1836. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
407 
present, as a more appreciated vegetable cannot well be sent into the 
house for an employer’s use. I just wish to say before I sit down that I 
have recently obtained much valuable inf irmation from a practical 
treatise on the culture of the Mushroom, written by Mr. Wright. It can 
be obtained at a cost of Is., and this indispensable guide, under the name 
of ‘ Mushrooms for the Million,’ will be a friend to all.” 
Fully one hundred members of the Society attended, and a good useful 
discussion followed. One of the members, Mr. Bick, spoke on outdoor 
culture, having worked on Mr. Barter’s plan, as recommended in “ Mush¬ 
rooms fir the Million,” and that a bed he made up in February last, 
-5 yards long, and made as per illustration at page 25 of Mr. Wright’s 
book, and he began cutiing at the end of April, and had secured a very 
large quan ity of excellent Mushrooms. A discussion arose as to the 
heat applied, which he explained was only that in the manure itself for 
the germination of the spawn, but he was so thoroughly satisfied with 
the experiment, that he proposed giving the outdoor culture more ex¬ 
tended application. Mr. Bick said he felt bound to speak in the highest 
tones of Mr. Wright’s book, which would make Mushroom growing not 
only easy but general throughout the kingdom. Messrs. Cooper, Jinks, 
Wood, Spinks, Jones, Wneeler, and Harris also took part in the 
•discussion. 
We may just add that the Birmingham Society is making wonderful 
progress, numbering already 250 members, with a special library fund of 
£74, and the Society only ten months old, but Mr. Hughes is an inde- 
fagitable Secretary, and to his efforts the greater portion of the library 
fund is due.—W. D. W. 
INDIAN EXPERIENCES. 
Now the cultivation of Tea, Coffee, Chinchona, and other agricultural 
products is making such rapid strides both in India and Ceylon, and when 
so many young gardeners are annually leaving England for those distant 
lands, it may not perhaps be uninteresting to some readers of ihe 
Journal of Horticulture to have a description of personal experience of 
a planter’s life in southern India, extending over an uninterrupted period 
of some seventeen years. 
At the outset I may be permitted to give it as my opinion that while 
to the young gardener in England the area of success in his profession is 
admittedly becoming yearly more circumscribed, and even greatly under¬ 
paid, employment is becoming more and more difficult to obtain. The 
planting and horticultural field of enterprise in India and Ceylon is to 
the well educated and trained young gardener a very hopeful one. At the 
same time, I would impress upon him before taking the final step, that 
ultimate success in any country, but more especially a country like India, 
will depend greatly upon his own strength of character, self-control, 
veracity, integrity, and patient perseverance. Temptations to upset and 
trample underfoot all these virtues abound in India, but of these tempta¬ 
tions I shall have more to say afterwards. I would only in this place beg 
to reiterate my warning to young gardeners about to emigrate to India, 
that without the firm resolve to adhere firmly to the abo re principles 
of conduct, failure will, in nine cases out of every ten, be the inevitable 
result. 
I have already stated that I have had some seventeen years’ planting 
experience in south India. This was between the years 1861 and 1877 7 . 
Eleven years of this period I spent in Coffee planting in the Wynaad 
district of Malabar, five years in Chinchona planting on the Neilgherry 
Hills, and one year in the Indian Forest Department in Tinnevelly, the 
most southern, and perhaps the hottest of all the Indian provinces. In 
1861, being then just twenty-three years of age, I was employed as 
propagator by a well known firm of nurserymen at Edinburgh on a 
weekly wage of 18s., with bothy on the grounds; the latter a hovel con¬ 
sisting of one room 10 feet square, free of access to all employed in the 
nursery, and containing two beds for the accommodation of four persons. 
The room contained not a vestige of an article of furniture conducive to 
comfort, with the exception of a rough deal table, one wooden-bottomed 
chair, and a wooden form. The above salary and accommodation was 
in those days deemed sufficient for young men who were expected to 
attend closely to their duties from ten to twelve hours daily, to possess 
a knowledge of the history, mode of propagation, and culture of all plants 
coming under their notice, also to converse intelligently with customers. 
In a room such as I have attempted to describe it is needless to say that 
no opportunity existed for reading or study for the advancement in our 
profession. The wages were too small to allow for my own support and 
that of a widowed parent. These things combined made life very irksome 
to me, and being, like most young gardeners, anxious to improve myself 
iii my profession and otherwise, and being denied the means of obtaining 
the necessary books, &c., for doing so, I not unnaturally turned my 
ait ntion to emigration, and e’er long was fortunate enough to observe 
an advertisement in the columns of the Scotsman newspaper for a young 
gardener to proceed to India as an assistant on a Coffee estate on a 
salary of RslOO or £120 for the first year; Rsl20, or £144, for the 
second year ; Rsl40, or £168, for the third year ; and £240 per annum 
for the two following years. Engagement for the five years, with 
an optional break at the end of the third year, I applied for the 
appointment, and with the assistance of my employers and other friends 
ootained it at once, signed the agreement, and was off on my voyage to 
India within four weeks from the date of my application. 
It was on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the latter end of October, 
1361, that I set sail from Southampton in the good ship Mooltan of the 
1 emnsular and Oriental Steamship Company for Alexandria. The over¬ 
land j rnrney to India has been so frequently and so graph'ca’ly described 
by the ablest writers that it would be utterly useless for me to attempt 
to tread the same path. I shall therefore confine my few remarks to some 
incidents of the journey which produced in soma cases a very pleasing, and 
in all a lasting impression on my mind. 
The terrors of the Bay of Biscay past, it was passing pleasant to land 
for a few hours at Gibraltar. A few days’ sail had brought us from every 
indication of an approaching dreary English winter into summer again 
with all its accompanying flowers and fruits, festoons and masses of 
flowers hanging from bower and wall in the open air, the produce of 
plants that it had been my duty to tend with assiduous care under glass 
in England. Then the voyage to Malta and Alexandria was a thing 
never to be forgotten, the intense blue of the inland sea baffling the pen 
of poet to describe. While deeply enjoying the trip down the Mediter¬ 
ranean the fact was lost sight of that the good ship Mooltan was fast 
approaching Alexandria, with its cloud of windmills, its fervid heat, its 
steamy and squalid bazaars reeking with fifth and drowned in swarms of 
flies. With the advent of the native pilot on board to guide us into the 
famous bay came the first feeling of oppressive heat, and if it must be 
confessed the incipient regret that I had left dear old England, and the 
very pronounced resolve to take advantage of the clause in my agreement 
with reference to the optional break at the end of the third year, and re¬ 
turn to my native land. The resolve was deepened by a remark of a 
fellow passenger to the effect that if I felt the heat so much at Alexandria 
he did not know how I would get on ia India. One night in the ancient 
city and off next morning by rail to Cairo, where we were compelled 
to remain four days awaiting the arrival of the mail steamer at Suez, 
which was to taki us on to Bombay. On the way to Cairo I had an 
opportunity of seeing the destruction caused to the wretched huts com¬ 
posing the native villagers by a higher than usual rising of the Nile. The 
water had recently -uHsided, leaving nothing but pools here and there in 
a sea of mud, and revealing the fact that in most of the villages one-half 
of the huts had comp etely collapsed, and in some instances the whole of 
the huts of a village had crumbled into the original mud from whence 
they sprang. This state of things made it very difficult for travellers 
either on foot, donkey, or muleback to get along, and large crowds in con¬ 
sequence took advantage of the high railway embankment, frequently 
bringing our train to a standstill. These crowds consisted of natives of all 
degrees and conditions, many well-to-do merchants evidently, and all 
wending their way to the capital. 
Our four days’ sojourn at Cairo was spent very pleasantly in visiting 
the lions of the city on donkey back. Shepherd’s Hotel afforded good 
accommodation, and although the days were hot and dusty in that rain¬ 
less region, yet the evenings were extremely pleasant, and as it happened 
to be full moon at the time the brilliantly lit-up sky and clear soft atmo¬ 
sphere and still air were wonderfully attractive to anyone fresh from 
England. It was at this hotel I had the pleasure of seeing for the first 
time the celebrated General Outram. He had come out to Egypt for his 
health, being unable to stand an English autumn and wiuter. During 
the evenings he sat in the verandah of the hotel conversing in a very low 
tone of voice with his friends. His forty years’ service in India had 
evidently told severely on his health,”as he appeared to be a complete 
wreck as he sat leaning with both hands on his stick and with his chin 
resting on his breast, and unless I had been told of his identity I would 
little have suspected that the “ Bayard of India” sat before me. As an 
instance of the truth of the saying, “ No man is a hero to his valet,” I 
on frequent occasions overheard the man in attendance on the General 
complain in no very complimentary terms of his master’s irritability and 
other supposed failings. He little understood what a forty years’ resi¬ 
dence in a hot climats like India meant, with all the anxiety, responsi¬ 
bilities, and dangers connected with a life like that of General 
Outram’s. 
On the morning of the fifth day we started for Suez by train, reach¬ 
ing that place some time in the afternoon, after only one brief stoppage 
on the way. The journey across the desert was a hot one, but not devoid 
of beauty, although not a vestige of vegetation was to be seen ; yet the 
white and yellow sand hills and undulating ground were very 
impressive, and stretching out on either side as far as the eye 
could reach. Arriving at Suez we dined at the Oriental Hotel off 
food not of the very choicest description, and then embarked on 
the mail steamer for Bombay. The heat was very oppressive till we 
reached Aden, where we went on shore for twelve hours and had an 
opportunity of inspecting that bleak, burning, treeless, plaatless, yet 
wonderful place, with its marvellous fortifications and natural defences. 
In the evening we again went on board the good ship Behar, which 
soon weighed anchor, which, after a delightful trip across the Indian 
Ocean in beautiful weather, duly landed her passengers at the port of 
Bombay without mishap, the voyage from India to Bombay occupying 
some thirty-two days. 
My stay at Bombay was of very short duration, and consequently I 
had n i time to visit the public gardens and other places of interest as I 
intended to have done. I had seen nothing in the shape of vegetation 
since I left the Egyptian delta, and was much disappointed at finding so 
little in the parts of Bombay I visited. The whole amounted to a few 
Mango trees, a few scattered Cocoanut trees, and some flow-ring shrubs 
in the gardeos. After arranging some matters with the gentleman who 
had brought me out to India, 1 started, in company with an uher young 
Englishman, in a chartered native craft called a “pattimir”—coasting 
steamers not being so plentiful in those days—for Calicut on the Malabar 
coast, a distance of some 700 miles. The crew consisted of eight or nine 
natives, not one of whom could speak a word of English, our interpreter 
b.i ig a I’ortuguese servant, who acted as interpreter, cook, and general 
