Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

ought before the Government, in language which it would have been well to remember or reproduce in the
subsequent avoidable famines of Orissa and North Bihar. Indigo is set before us with the skill of one who had
grown and manufactured it for years. The hemp and jute plants are enlarged on in language which unconsciously
anticipates the vast and enriching development given to the latter as an export and a local manufacture
since the Crimean War. An account of the oil-seeds and the faulty mode of expressing the oil, which
made Indian linseed oil unfit for painting, is followed by remarks on the cultivation of wheat, to which subsequent
events have given great importance. Though many parts, even of Dinapoor, were fit for the growth of
wheat and barley, the natives produced only a dark variety from bad seed. “For the purpose of making a trial I
sowed Patna wheat on a large quantity of land in the year 1798, the flour produced from which was of a very
good quality.” The pulses, tobacco, the egg-plant, the capsicums, the cucumbers, the arum roots, turmeric,
ginger, and sugar-cane, all pass in review in a style which the non-scientific reader may enjoy and the expert
must appreciate. Improvements in method and the introduction of the best kinds of plants and vegetables are
suggested, notwithstanding “the poverty, prejudices, and indolence of the natives.”
This paper is most remarkable, however, for the true note which its writer was the first to strike on the subject
of forestry. If we reflect that it was not till 1846 that the Government made the first attempt at forest conservancy,
in order to preserve the timber of Malabar for the Bombay dockyard; and not till the conquest of
Pegu, in 1855, that the Marquis of Dalhousie was led by the Friend of India to appoint Dietrich Brandis of
Bonn to care for the forests of Burma, and Dr. Cleghorn for those of South India, we shall appreciate the wise
foresight of the missionary-scholar, who, having first made his own park a model of forest teaching, wrote
such words as these early in the century: “The cultivation of timber has hitherto, I believe, been wholly neglected.
Several sorts have been planted... all over Bengal, and would soon furnish a very large share of the
timber used in the country. The sissoo, the Andaman redwood, the teak, the mahogany, the satin-wood, the
chikrasi, the toona, and the sirisha should be principally chosen. The planting of these trees single, at the distance
of a furlong from each other, would do no injury to the crops of corn, but would, by cooling the atmosphere,
rather be advantageous. In many places spots now unproductive would be improved by clumps or
small plantations of timber, under which ginger and turmeric might be cultivated to great advantage. In some
situations saul... would prosper. Indeed the improvements that might be made in this country by the planting
of timber can scarcely be calculated. Teak is at present brought from the Burman dominions... The French
naturalists have already begun to turn their attention to the culture of this valuable tree as an object of national
utility. This will be found impracticable in France, but may perhaps be attempted somewhere else. To
England, the first commercial country in the world, its importance must be obvious.”
Ten years passed, Carey continued to watch and to extend his agri-horticultural experiments in his own
garden, and to correspond with botanists in all parts of the world, but still nothing was done publicly in India.
At last, on 15th April 1820, when “the advantages arising from a number of persons uniting themselves as a
Society for the purpose of carrying forward any undertaking” were generally acknowledged, the shoemaker
and preacher who had a generation before tested these advantages in the formation of the first Foreign Mission
Society, issued a Prospectus of an Agricultural and Horticultural Society in India, from the “Mission
House, Serampore.” The prospectus thus concluded: “Both in forming such a Society and in subsequently
promoting its objects, important to the happiness of the country as they regard them, the writer and his colleagues
will be happy in doing all their other avocations will permit.” Native as well as European gentlemen
were particularly invited to co-operate. “It is peculiarly desirable that native gentlemen should be eligible as
members of the Society, because one of its chief objects will be the improvement of their estates and of the
peasantry which reside thereon. They should therefore not only be eligible as members but also as officers of
the Society in precisely the same manner as Europeans.” At the first meeting in the Town Hall of Calcutta,
Carey and Marshman found only three Europeans beside themselves. They resolved to proceed, and in two
months they secured more than fifty members, several of whom were natives. The first formal meeting was
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