IOR/F/4/2595/157429

Table of Contents.

[p 1] Extract from a General letter from the Government of Bengal to the Court of Directors in the General Department (No.26 of 1854), dated 23rd May 1854, regarding the Government resolution that the gratuitous distribution of plants from the Company's Botanic Garden should cease from and after the 1st April 1857, except in special cases and on purely public grounds.

[pp 3-8] Correspondence regarding a piece of ground attached to the Botanical Garden and adjoining the Bishop's College on which jungle grows, and the application from Kally Mohun Banerjea to take the ground on a lease in order to clear it for the purpose of improving the sanitation of the neighbourhood, June to December 1853.

[pp 8-17] Correspondence regarding Dr Falconer's delay in replying to letters sent to him by Government, and in sending the report asked for on the discontinuance of the practice of freely distributing plants from the Calcutta Botanic Garden, December 1853 to March 1854.

[pp 17-26] Correspondence regarding Dr Falconer's reasons for not complying with the application of Baboo Kallee Mohun Banerjea to lease a piece of ground belonging to the Botanical Garden and adjoining the Bishop's College, March 1854; and enclosing an extract from a letter from the Civil Finance Committee, dated 1st October 1829, regarding the piece of ground.

[pp 26-46] Letter from Dr Falconer, Superintendent, Hon'ble Company's Botanic Garden, to the Under Secretary to the Government of Bengal, dated 6th March 1854, giving his observations on the question of discontinuing the practice of distributing plants gratuitously from the Hon'ble Company's Botanical Garden to persons resident in India. In his letter, Dr Falconer gives a short history of the Calcutta Botanic Gardens and the practice of freely distributing plants, and states that on a review of the whole question he thinks that the distribution of plants gratuitously to the community ought to be discontinued, recommending that 3 years notice will be sufficient to prepare the public for the change.

[p 47] Table showing the yearly issue of plants and seed packets from the Hon'ble Company's Botanic Garden, Calcutta, from 1st March 1851 to 28th February 1854.

[p 48] Abstract estimate of the cost of labour and Establishment expended annually on the gratuitous distribution of plants and seeds from the Hon'ble Company's Botanic Garden.

[pp 50-52] Notification, dated 23rd March 1854, intimating that the discontinuance of the gratuitous distribution of plants from the Hon'ble Company's Botanic Garden will cease after the 1st April 1857, with related correspondence.