George Watt (botanist)

An abridged edition of his work was also published as the single volume Commercial Products of India in 1908.

Around 1864, there was a famine in Orissa and the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Sir George Campbell was firm that agricultural education was key to avoiding similar disasters and following the recommendations of Sir John Strachey's Famine Commission, a need to carry out scientific study to improve the food supply in India was noted.

Hooker, he was selected for the post Professor of Botany, at Presidency College, Calcutta University and joined there in 1873–74.

[2] In 1881 he was posted as surgeon to the Burma-Manipur Delimitation Commission with special permission to conduct botanical studies during the expedition.

On his return to India, he was put in charge of the Indian Museum and appointed Reporter on Economic Products under the Department of Revenue and Agriculture.

The exhibits themselves had been organized by Trailokhya Nath Mukharji, a civil servant who later served as a curator of the economic section at the Indian Museum.

[7][8] Watt's compilation included descriptions of other natural products such as silk, oysters and minerals.

Burkill, who moved to the Straits Settlement published A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula in two volumes in 1935.

[9] Watt made a study of tea cultivation in Assam and Kangra and published a report of the pests and diseases affecting it in 1898.

[10] Watt won the Daniel Hanbury Gold medal in 1901, and was knighted in the 1903 Durbar Honours.