The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
Italy and Scotland alone preceded Carey in this organisation, and he
quotes with approbation the action of Sir John Sinclair in 1790, which
led to the first inquiry into the state of British agriculture. The
Transactions which Carey led the Society to promise to publish in
English, Bengali, and Hindostani, have proved to be only the first of a
series of special periodicals representing Indian agriculture
generally, tea, and forestry. The various Governments in India have
economic museums; and the Government of India, under Lord Mayo,
established a Revenue and Agricultural Department expanded by Lord
Curzon. Carey's early proposal of premiums, each of a hundred rupees,
or the Society's gold medal, for the most successful cultivation on a
commercial scale of coffee and improved cotton, for the successful
introduction of European fruits, for the improvement of indigenous
fruits, for the successful introduction from the Eastern Islands of the
mangosteen or doorian, and for the manufacture of cheese equal to
Warwickshire, had the best results in some cases. In 1825 Mr. Lamb of
Dacca was presented by "Rev. Dr. Carey in the chair" with the gold
medal for 80 lbs. of coffee grown there. Carey's own head gardener
became famous for his cabbages; and we find this sentence in the
Society's Report just after the founder's death:--"Who would have
credited fifteen years ago that we could have exhibited vegetables in
the Town Hall of Calcutta equal to the choicest in Covent Garden?" The
berries two centuries ago brought from Arabia in his wallet by the
pilgrim Baba Booden to the hills of Mysore, which bear his name, have,
since that Dacca experiment, covered the uplands of South India and
Ceylon. Before Carey died he knew of the discovery of the indigenous
tea-tree in its original home on the Assam border of Tibet--a discovery
which has put India in the place of China as a producer.
In the Society's Proceedings for 9th January 1828 we find this
significant record:--"Resolved, at the suggestion of the Rev. Dr.
Carey, that permission be given to Goluk Chundra, a blacksmith of
Titigur, to exhibit a steam engine made by himself without the aid of
any European artist." At the next meeting, when 109 malees or native
gardeners competed at the annual exhibition of vegetables, the steam
engine was submitted and pronounced "useful for irrigating lands made
upon the model of a large steam engine belonging to the missionaries at
Serampore." A premium of Rs. 50 was presented to the ingenious
blacksmith as an encouragement to further exertions of his industry.
When in 1832 the afterwards well-known Lieutenant-Governor Thomason was
deputy-secretary to Government, he applied to the Society for
information regarding the manufacture of paper. Dr. Carey and Ram
Komal Sen were referred to, and the former thus replied in his usual
concise and clear manner:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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