Himachal
History
The amazing story of India’s first apple orchard
Apple, the most lovable king of all fruits, was first grown in India in the Kullu valley and not in Shimla as is popularly believed. Here is the amazing story behind India’s first apple cultivation not many know of…
The apple story of India begins in the 19th century in the verdant valley of Kullu in Himachal Pradesh.
The year was 1870. And life in the valley was beautiful.
There were no roads connecting Kullu with the outside world and no vehicles either. The valley was accessible only through rather difficult Jalori, Bhubhu or Dulchi mountain passes.
And those who rarely came, came on foot or riding ponies.
In such a time and place, Britishers were the first foreigners to arrive after having taken over Kullu from the Sikhs in the Anglo-Sikh war of 1846. Charmed by the beauty and Europe-like climate conditions, these early settlers bought huge chunks of land in the valley including in villages like Bajaura, Raison, Dobhi, Naggar and Manali, which at that time was a non-descript hamlet, and got into farming.
Among the first Britishers to settle down in the Kullu valley was Captain R C Lee, who after retiring from his regiment, Royal Sussex, had come to India in 1870 and bought land in Bandrol, a small village around 12 kms from Kullu town on the Manali highway. Captain Lee got himself built a house on a hill in Bandrol village and started living here.
He soon realised that Kullu was ideal for apple cultivation as the weather in the valley was just like back home in Devon, England. Captain Lee asked his father to send tree saplings of apples and also other fruits including pears, plums and cherries from his estate in Devon and got down to cultivating his land in Bandrol himself.
As the fruit saplings arrived from England, Captain Lee successfully established the first apple orchard of India in Bandrol village the same year in 1870.
English author Penelope Chetwode writes in her acclaimed book “Kullu: The End of the Habitable World,” which is one of the finest sources of British history in Kullu, that the apple varieties Captain Lee planted in his orchards included Cox’s Orange Pippin, Blenheim Orange, Newton and Russet.
Captain Lee’s unique and innovative example was soon followed by other British settlers in the valley including Captain A T Banon, who after retiring from now-defunct Royal Munster Fusiliers, had started living in Manali, Colonel Rennick, a big landowner who also owned the Garh estate in Bajaura, Mr Willie Donald and eventually by the local residents of Kullu.
Transporting apples through postal department
A number of apple orchards had started blooming in the valley in the 1870s. However, there was one big problem. How to transport apples out of the valley especially to Shimla, the summer of capital of India at that time. Initially, Captain Lee and other growers sent apples in kiltas, the cone-shaped baskets made of bamboo. The kiltas were carried by hired workers all the way from Manali to Banjar to Jalori Jot to Rampur and finally Shimla, covering a distance of around 225 kms. The growers also used mules to send their apples in the early days. But these modes of transportation turned out to be a bit non-profitable to the growers.
Then Captain Banon came up with a brilliant idea.
He decided to send his apples through the parcel post.
Penelope Chetwode writes in “Kullu: The End of the Habitable World” that this new mode of transportation turned out to be much cheaper as the cost was only two annas a pond. The Postal Department’s route from Manali to Shimla was via the Bhubhu mountain pass to Palampur and from Palampur to Pathankot and Shimla. From Manali to Palampur, the apples were carried in kiltas by postal department’s hired workers, called mail runners, and from Palampur to Shimla in dak tonga or ‘mail pony cart.’
According to Chetwode, during the peak apple season, as many as 200 mail runners used to carry apple kiltas at each stage of the transportation. The mail runners would complete a distance of around 144 kms in under 24 hours!
In the later years, when Kalka-Shimla railway track became operational in 1903, it became a little easier to transport apples as the last phase of the journey was completed using the toy trains.
Reaping the fruits
While Captain Lee first started apple cultivation in India, it was Mr Willie Donald, another British settler in the Kullu valley, who became one of the most successful fruit growers.
Mr Donald, who was the son of Mr Alexander John Donald, started his career in Kullu as a manager of Mr Rennick’s Garh estate in Bajaura. Around the same time, Mr Donald was given the Dobhi estate by his elder sister where he lived for many years after marrying the granddaughter of Mr Minnikin, an Irish man, who had come to the valley to manage the Kullu Tea Company and used to live in Aramgarh near Raison (now called Ramgarh). The Kullu Tea Company ran tea gardens in Raison and Naggar villages.
Interestingly, Willie Donald also worked as an engineer in the Public Works Department of Kullu sub-division at that time and credit goes to him for constructing wood-and-iron bridges across rivers and rivulets not only in Kullu but also in the neighbouring Lahaul Spiti. Mr Donald also lived in Naggar after founding Kutbai estate and built a house there he named ‘The Manor.’
The Fall
Most British settlers started leaving the Kullu valley in and around 1947, the year India gained Independence. Mr Rennick sold his Garh estate in Bajaura and the Hall Estate in Naggar to the Raja of Mandi and left for Florence, Italy. The two daughters of Mr Willie Donald sold their inherited estates in Dobhi and Naggar and returned to England in 1952.
According to Chetwode, the departure of settlers had got less to do with the Indian Independence but more about the road that was built connecting Kullu with the neighbouring Mandi town in the 1920s. The settlers did not like the influx of people that arrived in the valley in the buses and lorries after the road was built. The happy valley was no longer the same. The new road had made it possible for even tourists to reach the valley. As the settlers left, the apple orchards in the valley also suffered due to lack of care.
As far as Captain Lee is concerned, he chose to stay back. But not much is known about Captain Lee’s personal life. Chetwode mentions in her book that Captain Lee had two sons and that how his house in Bandrol used to be the frequent meeting place of British families in the valley. According to the old timers of Kullu, Captain Lee in the later stages of his life had married a Kullu woman. He had no children from this marriage. Captain Lee had died in Kullu only.
The first orchard of India that Captain Lee had planted is presently owned by Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and a part of it by a local resident.
With Captain Lee dead and most British settlers gone, the story of the first apple revolution came to an end in the Kullu valley.
But the second apple revolution had just begun in Shimla.
Another apple pioneer from America was revolutionising the apple cultivation in Shimla’s Kotgarh village. He was teaching locals how to plant and cultivate apples. In the coming years and decades, this man would become a household name and make apple the fruit king of Himachal Pradesh.
His name was Samuel Evans Stokes, better known as Satyananda Stokes.
India’s first apple orchard video
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