An interesting catalogue of the plants in this garden, at the time of
East’s decease, was prepared by Dr. A. Broughton, and forms an appendix
under the title of “Hortus Eastensis” to Bryan Edwards’s “History of the
British West Indies.”
From a letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks by the Botanic Gardener,
Jamaica, 1793, we gather that the bread-fruit trees “were upwards of 11
feet high, with leaves 36 inches long, and the success in cultivating
them has exceeded the most sanguine expectations; the cinnamon tree is
become very common, and mangoes are in such plenty as to be planted in
the negro grounds. There are, also, several bearing trees of the jack or
bastard bread-fruit ... and we have one nutmeg plant.” For his services
in introducing the bread-fruit tree, 1000 guineas were granted in 1793
to Captain Bligh and 500 guineas to Lieutenant Portlock.
The Botanic Garden at Liguanea continued to be under Wiles’s care
(superintended by a Committee of the House of Assembly) for many years,
while that at Bath was entrusted to Dr. Dancer as Island Botanist. The
allowance for the two gardens was fixed at £800. The duties of the
Island Botanist were defined as follows: “To collect, class and describe
the native plants of the island; to use his endeavours to find out their
medicinal virtues; to discover if they possess any qualities useful to
the arts, and annually to furnish the House with a correct list of such
plants as are in the Botanic Gardens, together with such information as
he may have acquired relative to their uses and virtues.”
For the purpose of distributing the bread-fruit and other valuable
plants from the Botanic Garden the Committee of the House “appointed
several Committees for each county, to receive and distribute the
allotments destined for them,” and, according as sufficient numbers were
prepared for propagation, the Chairmen of the County Committees were
apprised and their respective proportions delivered and distributed, “by
which means,” it is quaintly remarked, “the public has derived all the
advantages to be expected from these establishments.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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