On 13 January 1830 the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India (AHSI) held its fourth annual vegetable exhibition in the Calcutta Town Hall. Eminent European and Bengali members watched as the wife of Governor-General Bentinck placed silver medals around the necks of Bengali malis (gardeners) who had presented the best specimens of cauliflowers, cabbages, turnips, and other ‘European’ vegetables. About 100 local malis attended the exhibition that year and all who brought specimens received at least one or two rupees reward while twenty-four received a forty rupee first-place prize. This annual event was a prime example of colonial governance based on the idea of improvement. The spectacle of the exhibition not only influenced malis to grow more European vegetables, it also engaged European missionaries, planters, merchants, and state officials in the project of improving India with minimal cost to the state. Besides these yearly vegetable exhibitions, the AHSI (founded in 1820) widely distributed seeds of both European vegetables and new imperial cash crops like Tahitian sugarcane and American cotton. In addition, they created a scientific discourse on agriculture and horticulture in India, what they called a ‘depository of practical knowledge’, which they collected mostly from Europeans living in South Asia. They used this depository to support planters and projects of local governance, such as attempts to increase cultivation in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Like earlier networks of botanical collection in the eighteenth century, this agricultural ‘improvement’ project of the AHSI had an instrumentalist and imperial nature. The Society’s initial prospectus (1820) outlined the sort of science which its European founders hoped to generate. Modified mercantilist views on the importance of agriculture (echoing the eighteenth-century physiocrats) informed its purpose: to raise the value of land by increasing its produce seen as the only way to create national prosperity. Yet they also believed that agriculture was a uniquely insular vocation, as ‘the class of men’ who practised it were predisposed to ‘prejudice’ and resistant to change. A scientific

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菜园与经济作物：印度农业园艺学会的科学与政治经济学，1820–40年

1830年1月13日，印度农业和园艺学会（AHSI）在加尔各答市政厅举行了第四届年度蔬菜展览。欧洲和孟加拉国的知名人士目睹了总督本廷克的妻子将银质奖章戴在孟加拉国锦葵（园丁）的脖子上，这些锦簇上展示了最好的花椰菜，卷心菜，萝卜和其他“欧洲”蔬菜标本。当年大约有100名当地的大猩猩参加了展览，所有带标本的人都获得了至少一到两卢比的奖励，而二十四位获得了四十卢比的一等奖。这项年度盛事是基于改进思想的殖民统治的一个典型例子。展览的奇观不仅影响了玛利斯种植更多的欧洲蔬菜，还吸引了欧洲传教士，种植者，商人，和州官员参与以最小的成本改善印度的项目。除了这些每年举行的蔬菜展览之外，AHSI（成立于1820年）还广泛分发了欧洲蔬菜和新的帝国经济作物（如大溪地甘蔗和美国棉花）的种子。此外，他们创建了关于印度农业和园艺的科学论述，他们称之为“实践知识库”，他们主要从居住在南亚的欧洲人那里收集了这些知识。他们使用该保管库来支持种植者和地方治理项目，例如尝试在Sundarbans红树林中增加种植。像18世纪早期的植物收集网络一样，AHSI的农业“改良”项目具有工具主义和帝国主义的性质。该学会的初始招股说明书（1820年）概述了其欧洲创始人希望产生的科学。重商主义主义者对农业重要性的看法（呼应18世纪的政治家）提出了其目的：通过增加土地产量来增加土地价值，这被认为是创造国家繁荣的唯一途径。然而，他们还认为，农业是一种独特的孤立职业，因为实践农业的“一类人”易受“偏见”和抵制变革的影响。科学的 但是他们还认为，农业是一种独特的孤立职业，因为实践农业的“一类人”易受“偏见”和抵制变革的影响。科学的 然而，他们还认为，农业是一种独特的孤立职业，因为实践农业的“一类人”易受“偏见”和抵制变革的影响。科学的