Taste of Life: How Sir Malcolm built a botanical garden in Poona

in December 1827, he proposed converting the garden at the Dapooree estate into a government botanical garden

One fine morning in the summer of 1827, Shrimant Chintamanrao Appasaheb Patwardhan, the first ruler of Sangli, visited Major-General Sir John Malcolm at his residence in Dapooree (Dapodi) near Poona. Patwardhan was impressed by the garden at the Dapooree estate. He discussed at length with Malcolm the naturalization of several European and American crops in India by the East India Company. Potatoes were talked about at length. Malcolm had planted them at Dapooree. The tuber from the Americas, though it had arrived in India at least two centuries ago, had just been naturalized in Western India. Speaking of the success in rearing potatoes, Patwardhan told Malcolm, “A new vegetable is a trifle to you Europeans, compared to what it is to us Brahmins.”

Major-General Sir John Malcolm (WIKIPEDIA)

The Dapooree estate was originally developed by Colonel Ford. It was at Dapooree that Ford had built a palatial residence, and raised and commanded a brigade of magnificent Maratha troops after the European fashion for the service of the Peshwa Bajirao. The house, garden, and grounds of Dapooree were purchased in 1827 by Malcolm for the use of the government. It was his residence whenever he was in Poona, which was quite often.

After being appointed the Governor of Bombay in 1827, Malcolm had actively begun putting into place what he thought were the “correct principles” of British rule. Firstly, India was to be ruled for the benefit of the company, but also of Indians. Secondly, the indirect rule was to be preferred. Thirdly, decentralisation of governance was to be followed. To achieve this, he appointed several “district officers” and started dividing large offices into smaller ones and appointing “superintendents” for them.

Apart from seeking to end both “sati” and female infanticide, Malcolm, around the same time, started taking interest in introducing new vegetables and fruits to India. And to achieve this, in December 1827, he proposed converting the garden at the Dapooree estate into a government botanical garden.

There were altogether seventy acres of ground belonging to the Dapooree estate, of which 11 acres were not arable, and 12 acres were occupied by the buildings. A large and beautiful garden well stocked, not only with common Indian and English fruit trees, flowers and vegetable productions of all kinds, but many rare plants had been developed by Ford.

This garden had excellent soil, Malcolm believed and was amply supplied with water by aqueducts, which, at very little cost, could be put in complete repair. He knew his proposal would be met with some resistance; hence, he wanted the botanical garden to be on a limited scale, and though put and kept in order, it was his desire to incur as little expense as possible until the Court’s pleasure was known.

In proposing its establishment, he wrote to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, “I am anxious for the promotion of liberal science, and I am much alive to the expediency and policy of every measure (however trifling it may seem), that can, without unjustifiable expenditure, benefit the country, and add to the peaceable occupation and enjoyment of its inhabitants, of whose habits and character I have sufficient knowledge to be convinced that not example, but every stimulus we can apply, is necessary to rouse them to exertion in the pursuit of objects which are obviously for their advantage…”

However, a section of high-ranking officials was averse to the idea. Botanical gardens already existed in Calcutta, Madras, and Ceylon, and they felt that the expenditure incurred in maintaining those gardens was far more than the benefits reaped. They felt that the Raj should not bother itself with the welfare of the natives and should rather concentrate on the profits.

Malcolm’s detractors wrote several letters mentioning the “lamentable condition of the Indian finances”. They wanted the Court to postpone the plans for the garden by at least eighteen months. Ideally, they wanted the project disapproved and abandoned.

A section of the government was not at ease and could not avoid remarking that many objects of culture which had long been naturalized in the Bengal and Madras Presidencies were only then being introduced into the west of India. But the reason behind this was the unfavourable climatic conditions, and not a lack of funds.

Malcolm was furious. Horticulture in India has to be pursued with scientific zeal and experiments had to be conducted, he reasoned. According to him, botanical gardens were supposed to be treated like laboratories where experiments would be conducted and the knowledge gained would be shared with the inhabitants of India and Europe. Such experiments would also result in profits for the company, he wrote to the Court of Directors.

One of his strongest supporters was Dr Nathaniel Wallich, superintendent of the Calcutta botanical garden. He wrote to Malcolm – “There was a time when a cabbage or a cocoa nut or betel garden was almost the whole extent of European (not to say native) horticulture in this country; how widely and delightfully different are matters now! There is an erroneous notion among people that the art of gardening cannot be successfully pursued in India because there exists no work treating professedly on that subject. But if people would only go straight forward, consulting their five senses, and not troubling themselves about engrafting English modes of cultivation on the plain methods that are dictated to us by the tropical climate, they would succeed much better than they do in general.”

Wallich was then on his way to England. Accompanying him were two Burmese and two Bengali gardeners. He planned to train them at the botanical schools in England and hoped that on their return to India, their knowledge could be put to use in bettering horticulture in the subcontinent.

Wallich proposed to Malcolm that he could send one of the gardeners, trained in England, to Poona to help with setting up the garden. The offer was gratefully accepted by him, but he first had to convince the Court.

He wrote a bunch of letters to the Court and his detractors. Many of the natives of Deccan were remarkably fond of gardening, Malcolm told the Court. It was a favourite pursuit with some of the principal Maratha chiefs. Several of them had visited Malcolm at his Dapooree garden, and requested seeds and plants. Malcolm had taken a keen interest in supplying potatoes for cultivation to many Maratha sardars.

Water was scarce in the Poona cantonment. It made rearing vegetables and fruits difficult. Malcolm proposed that they might be reared at Dapooree and sold with the fruit, as at the Calcutta botanical garden, to profit, and with advantage to the health of the European corps at Poona.

But when the Court did not come up with a decision, Malcolm decided to go ahead with the establishment of the botanical garden at Dapooree. He sent a new proposal outlining the finances of the garden. He had decided to spend some amount which he could, as the Governor of Bombay. The money was much less than needed, but the Court did not have the power to object to the expenditure. He hoped that eventually more money would be granted to Dapooree.

“My idea is to have fruit trees, vegetables, and crops of various parts of the world congregated together at Dapooree”, he wrote while declaring that the garden at Dapooree estate was converted into a botanical garden.

More about the Dapooree botanical garden next week.