GARDENING 

There are two popular gardens Makhria Garden and Pratap Sinha Park

With abundant water and plentiful manure from the street sweepings and other manure, gardening is carried on a with great success. Foreign vegetables are grown along the banks of the Venna and other streams, where there are also beds of strawberries and other fruit. The excessive rainfall prevents the cultivation of most European fruit trees, though they flourish at Panchgani about ten miles east. Potatoes locally known as red potatoes are largely grown and highly esteemed in the Poona and Bombay markets.

Among exotics may be mentioned a few oak trees, grown from acorns. The field crops are chiefly wheat, nachni or nagli, sava vari, coarse rice, and a little barley. Surgar cane is found only in a few spots which have a plentiful supply of water. As a rule the crops are harvested in the early season, so that the cultivators, unable to occupy themselves with cold weather sowings, have to seek other means of subsistence during the rest of the year. Except near water-course, the soil is barren, and as a rule, yields scanty crops. The local grain is always poor and is seldom used by any but the growers and a few servants.

Pictures shown below were taken out at Pingale Farms a nursery for plants brought in from Pune.

click on the thumbnail images for larger ones