Oct. r, 1886, 1 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



243 



A NEW INDTJSTRY--MINOR BUT USEFUL 

 FOR THE NATIVES OF CEYLON. 



We li'irn that there is a good demand in 

 England :ir "crocodile leather," which is being 

 used Tor Llicj bags, purses, &c. In view of the 

 large number of crocodiles to be found in our 

 Eastern, Southern and Northern tanks and on 

 the margins of other waste waters extending from 

 Anuradhapura to Jaffna, it is a question whether 

 their capture and the conversion of their skins 

 into leather would not pay handsomely. 



The skins, as exposed for sale, are stripped of 

 the hard scaly covering and present the color of 

 ordinary leather stamped with the figuring of the 

 outer scales. The price offered per skin is at 

 present we are told enormous, and none but the 

 choicest articles are made of this newiy developed 

 material. We think therefore that the authorities 

 of the Colombo Museum should prepare a few 

 specimen liides as used and sold in England, and 

 that, the (lovernment Agents in the districts 

 concerned, should exhibit the same with a view 

 to thrt development of an industry which would 

 put a good many rupees into the hands of the 

 poor half- fed villagers of the Vanni districts as 

 well as prove a benefit to many natives in the 

 Eastern, Southern and perhaps North-Western 

 provinces. 



THE ORCHIDS OF CEYLON. 



A friend writing from home teVls us that on 

 the occasion of a recent visit tu tlie magnificent 

 Botanical Gardens at Kew, he was struck by ob- 

 serving that there was an absence in the houses 

 there devoted to orchidiur of many specimens 

 with which he had become acquainted while 

 resident in Ceylon. So much attention is now 

 directed — not by botanists alone — but by home 

 floriculturists to this family of the plant world, 

 that it is certainly ^desirable some effort should be 

 made to have every member that can be dis* 

 covered, represented in the national collection. 



Not very many years back, while travelling 

 through the dense forest towards Batticaloa, the 

 gentleman already referred to, saw for the first 



time forms of orchids which had, to that time, 

 he^n altogether unknown to him. Of one of these 

 varieties he sent specimens to Kew, where it was 

 pronounced to be of a new kind and was gladly 

 accepted and propagated. There is no part of 

 Ceylon where orchids grow in such profusion, or 

 in such variety, as they do on the forest trees 

 in the neighbourhood of the Rugam tank, only 

 a few miles distant from Batticaloa. Doubtless 

 great liavoc has been made thereabouts by the 

 clearing of the land recently brought under cul- 

 tivation through the execution of the irrigation 

 works, but it is exceedingly improbable that having 

 once flourished in the district, there should not 

 remain many undisturbed spots where these lovely 

 eccentricities of nature do still abound. We are 

 asked to suggest that those whose business or 

 ])lcasure take them into the recesses of the 

 forests we have referred to, or to others equally 

 favourable and remott;, should endeavour to secure 

 speciniLMi pkints of any varieties which may 

 appear to iw- new or rare. Their value as regards 



their transportation to Kew can be determined 

 by a reference to the savants of Peradeniya ; but 

 so great, is the production and wealth of orchid 

 life in the forests between the foot of the hilly 

 ranges and the Batticaloa lake that — notwith- 

 standing all that has been done by the plant 

 collectors of Dr. Thwaites and Dr. Trimen — it is 

 just possible that careful search will reveal varieties 

 which may not yet have been named or catalogued. 

 In the paper which Dr. Trimen read before 

 the local branch of the Royal Asiatic Society a 

 few months ago. he mentioned that there were 

 in Ceylon of Orclitdea-, Ifio species of which 74 

 species (or 47'7 per cent) were endemic, that is 

 orchids peculiar to Ceylon. It ought to be an 

 object of interest and ambition— apart from 

 profit — with travellers, sportsmen and others to 

 add to this list. 



The wonderful and endless changes in form 

 and colour which the family of the orchidcie 

 present to us are, to a great extent, the results 

 of hybridism. This, which is artificially induced 

 in the greenhouses of England, may be presumed 

 to go on j^naturally among surroundings specially 

 favourable to growth such as are presented in 

 favorite localities in Ceylon. Now in England it 

 is no nncomiuvon thing for sixty or seventy 

 guineas to be paid for a single new hybrid of 

 special beauty or eccentricity in form or colour. 

 It might prove far from unremunerative therefore, 

 for searclr to be made in the favorite Itahitat 

 of the plants for such hybridism as may have 

 occurred naturally. It may not be far-fetched 

 to assume that by encouraging hybridism in such 

 a vast storehouse of the plants as we possess 

 here in Ceylon, a new and paying form of industry 

 might be opened out. We are all accustomed to 

 laugh at the tulip-mania which wrought through 

 the speculation to which it gave rise, so much 

 ruin among our countrymen in the time of William 

 and Mary, and again also at that for ' crotons,' 

 favorite kinds of which sold in Java a very few 

 years ago for from £10 to £20 cash. But the 

 craze for orchids is scarcely less strong in its 

 present development than was that for the flashy 

 bulb of the Hollanders and more permanent than 

 that for crotons could be. If, as we learn is the 

 case, any new and strange variety of orchids 

 bring prices running up almost to 100 guineas 

 the plant who can pretend to say whether our 

 eastern forests might not prove well worth a 

 careful examination. There, at all events, the 

 plants abound among conditions most fostering 

 to their growth. A little art employed to aid 

 nature, and there need be no limit to the fantastic 

 forms and brilliant colours which a skilful operator 

 might produce and if he can bring these under 

 the notice of the connoiseur at home, he will 

 scarcely fail to reap the fitting pecuniary reward 

 of his labour and skill. 



CINCHONA IN JAVA : OPINION OF THE 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF BATAVIA. 



We present our readers with the flrst answer 

 received to our several enquiries addressed to well-, 

 informed quarters in Java. The following letter 

 is a formal one from the Chamber of Commerce, 

 Batavia, the office-bearers of which have promptly 

 and courteously responded to our enquh-y. It will 

 be seen that these gentlemen consider the estimate 

 (in our " Handbook and Directory ") of a total of IT) 

 million cinchona trees for -lava as above the fact, 

 while they very properly remark on the discourage- 

 ment to cultivation in the prevalent low prices for 

 bark. Altogether this report will be regarded as 

 reassuring by cinchona owners \n Ceylon who ought 



