Report of the Agri-Horticultural Society of Western India For the Year 1865

The pleasure and recreation which the Gardens afford to the inhabitants of Bombay and instruction to the students of the Grant Medical College in Botany and to strangers visiting the Presidency are also claims to Municipal support. [...] Birdwood be autherized to commence a public subscription to meet the deficit and a debt incurred by the Society and that the members of the Society agree to assist the Secretary in raising the necessary amount." Proposed by the Rev. [...] and unanimously carried " That the Secretary be instructed to continue respectfully to urge upon the Government and the Municipality the pleas for assistance set forth in the correspondence which he had read to the meeting." The Rev. [...] Wilson in moving the resolution said that the claims of the Society upon the Government and the Municipality were most solid and that there was one which the Secretary had overlooked namely the opportunity which the Society affored to the poor of healthy recreation in their extensive gardens. [...] 2. Owing to the gift of the Victoria Gardens by Government to the Society their ordinary expenses have very greatly increased and notwithstanding that the Society receives the liberal support of the public its expenditure at the lowest rate necessary for keeping up the Gardens in their present state is beyond the Society's means.