n a deplorable state. About thirty
years ago the Indian government sent botanists to South America
to collect young cinchona trees. They were introduced into various
parts of the empire, where they flourished abundantly until the
export of bark ran nearly to 4,000,000 pounds a year, but since
1899 there has been a steady fall. Exports have declined, prices
have been low, and the government plantations have not paid expenses.
Rather than export the bark at a loss the government has manufactured
sulphate at its own factories and has furnished it at cost price
to the health authorities of the native states, the British
provinces, the army and the hospitals and dispensaries.

One of the most interesting places about Calcutta is the Royal
Botanical Gardens, where many important experiments have been
made for the benefit of the agricultural industry of India. It is
one of the most beautiful and extensive arboreums in the world,
and at the same time its economic usefulness has been unsurpassed
by any similar institution. It was established nearly 150 years
ago by Colonel Kyd, an ardent botanist, under the auspices of
the East India Company, and from its foundation it was intended
to be, as it has been, a source of botanical information, a place
for botanical experiments, and a garden in which plants of economic
value could be cultivated and issued to the public for the purpose
of introducing new products into India. It has been of incalculable
value in all these particulars, not only by introducing new plants,
but by demonstrating which could be grown with profit.

[Illustration: GREAT BANYAN TREE--BOTANICAL GARDEN--CALCUTTA]

The garden lies along the bank of the Ganges, about six miles
south of the city, and is filled with trees and plants of the
rarest varieties and the greatest beauty you can imagine. No
other garden will equal it except perhaps that at Colombo. It
is 272 acres in extent, has a large number of ponds and lakes,
and many fine avenues of palms, mahogany, mangos, tamarinds,
plantains and other trees, and its greatest glory is a banyan
tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world.

A banyan, as you know, represents a miniature forest rather than
a single tree, because it has branches which grow downward as
well as upward, and take root in the ground and grow with great
rapidity. This tree is about 135 years old. The circumference of
its main trunk five and a half feet from the ground is 51 feet.
I