/. o F 'rV O' 
4 b 4 / o 
TO OUR READERS. 
The six months during which the following pages were published have been to us so many 
months of uninterrupted growing prosperity; and to you, next to Him from whom alone 
comes the blessing needful for success, we tender our most grateful thanks. 
Next would we direct the expression of our gratitude to those who have enriched our 
pages by their contributions ; and here we hesitate how to record that two whom we should 
have included among their number have “ ceased from their labours ” in the sanguinary 
strife now fiercely waging in India. Upon their murderers—the murderers of their country¬ 
men, their wives, and their children—the visitation must be signal and unpitying—not in ; 
vengeance for the dead, but as a warning and a safeguard round their successors. Let 
no suggestion of mercy save the life of a revolted rajah, a mutinous sepoy, or a traitor 
Brahmin : such mercy will be mistaken for fear. We know them well, and never met with 
an exception to the rule that, when a high caste Hindoostanee deserves punishment, both he 
and all around mistake the motive if that punishment to the overflowing is not inflicted. 
In this utterance we are not straying entirely from our garden paths, for whilst we urge 
for punishment on the high caste criminals of India, we as strongly plead for tenderness 
towards its ryots. They are the gardeners of the land—allotment gardeners in the 
strictest sense of the term, paying in produce the rental of their very small holdings. 
We know them well too, and bear a willing testimony that they are a kind-hearted j 
race, grateful even for justice, and not only capable but ready to receive instruction. For 
the future let the armed sustainers of our rule be obtained from among them, and we 
will wager a whole pergunnah of Malwa Poppy soil against a fragment of granite from 
the Himalaya that such sustainers will be faithful. It is too usual for Calcutta authorities 
to depreciate these children of the soil, but the low estimate they adopt is arrived at * 
without any due experience of their character. Englishmen do not associate with the 
ryots, but with the high caste natives, and learn from them to estimate the ryots as 
of less value “ than many sparrows.” 
We repeat that we know these ryots well; from among them come the mallees, 
or gardeners, and we shall always look back with gratification upon their efforts 
to serve faithfully and efficiently, as well as to excel at the Calcutta Horticultural Shows. 
At the Exhibition of 1842 were Celery, Cabbages (Red, Drumhead, and Savoy), Spinach, 
Turnips, French Beans, Endive, Carrots, Lettuces, Red Beet, Artichokes, Potatoes, 
Tomatoes, Peas, Cauliflowers, Water-cresses, &c., that would not have shamed an English 
gardener at Fulham. There were hundreds of competitors, about forty of whom obtained . 
prizes (money and medals); and any contemner of the native character, looking upon 
the neatness and taste with which the various products were arranged, and the gratified 
looks which the prizemen wore, would have a somewhat altered opinion ol them, though 
they have a swarthy skin; and though naked to the waist they bowed down before 
Miss Eden while she decorated ‘them with their prizes. That they value the distinction, 
not merely for the intrinsic worth of the medal, was fully demonstrated by some ol the 
competing mallees attending on this occasion with two and even three previously-gained 
! medals suspended round their necks. 
Wm _- 
A**’ *Ud^ 
