mc, 1, 1586.] THE tROPlCAL AGRICULtURiSt* 



39' 



bunches. At this rate Bananas pay as well as any- 

 •thing cultivated in the island. Unfortunately, a vast 

 amount of damage has been done to all the seaside 

 properties by the wind in August. 



CINNAMON CULTIVATION IN THE SOUTHERN 



PEOVINCE. 



(From a Correspondent.) 

 Of late years the cultivation of Cinnamon has 

 greatly spread in the Southern Province, and it is 

 interesting to note that Sinhalese capitalists are 

 largely interested in the new plantations which 

 have sprung up in Amblangoda, Wallahanduwe, 

 Vowlagalla, Hapugalla, Matara, Ac. The plantation 

 spice from these estates is said to be of excellent 

 (juality, and the produce is readily taken up by 

 the Galle merchants for export to Europe. The 

 present market price all round is quoted at 36 

 cents per pound first cost. Our informant states 

 that there are nearly 100 plantations and gardens 

 now, whereas formerly there were scarcely half a 

 dozen. To Mr. Simon Perera, the owner of the 

 large estates in Galle, belongs the credit of having 

 embarked so successfully in the cultivation and pre- 

 paration of cinnamon in this province. 



OUR CABINET WOODS. 

 We confess to a feeling of disappointment 

 that the several reports appearing in the London 

 Times and other home journals of the Conference 

 lately held at the instance of Messrs. Ransome 

 & Co. upon the Cabinet Woods exhibited at 

 South Kensington this year, should make no re- 

 ference to those of Ceylon. While the products 

 of India, Australia, Borneo, &c., are the subject 

 of remark, those of Ceylon are entirely left out 

 of sight. This can scarcely have arisen from 

 want of prominence given to the collection of 

 Ceylon woods sent home. Indeed from various 

 correspondents we have received the assur- 

 ance that that collection is very complete and 

 full ; while we know that the magnificent 

 calamander wood furniture sent to the Show by 

 Mr. De Soysa has been made the subject on 

 many occasions of highly eulogistic comment. It 

 may be, however, that our exhibits in this part- 

 icular have been somewhat deficient in the special 

 form in which our many cabinet woods might 

 have been shown to the best advantage. It is 

 well-known that many of the most beautiful 

 grained woods may be passed over as undeserving 

 of notice if the proper treatment has not been 

 applied to them to show off their graining. The 

 colour of many of the timbers most in request 

 for the making of furniture is due, it is well- 

 known, to artificial treatment. The American 

 walnut, now so extensively employed in England, 

 and, perhaps, the most generally popular at the 

 present time for Cabinet work, remained for 

 many years a perfect drug in the London market, 

 unused and even unenquired for. It was not 

 until some expert either devised or learned from 

 America the character of the dye or varnish 

 required to develop the colour it is now made 

 to assume that the trade commenced to use it. 

 When once, however, this necessary process was 

 attained to, the demand for the wood became 

 almost excessive, beyond indeed what the export 

 from the American forests could supply, and the 

 i'eguU has been that it has hseu enormQUisly in 



price, nor is there we understand, any sign that 

 its appreciation is decreasing. 



Now a similiar result might have followed if 

 many of our woods sent home to the Indian and 

 Colonial Exhibition had had their qualities 

 developed by some such treatment. It cannot 

 be said that the wood of the jak in such common 

 use among both natives and Europeans in this 

 island is in its untreated condition very 

 attractive looking. Indeed, its bright yellow 

 colour when new may almost be said to be repulsive 

 to the eye. As a rule, it is left to time, and to 

 the effects of what is known as continued 

 " elbow polish,"' to develop its really beautiful 

 colouring. The beautifying effect can, however, 

 be produced by artificial means. If the wood is 

 washed over with a solution of lime, — which has 

 the effect of at once deepening the colour, — and 

 then treated with the common native wood varnish, 

 an appeal aace of dark polished oak will result, and 

 several intances are familiar where this treatment 

 has been successfully adopted. Among our native 

 woods, nadoon perhaps, comes the nearest in colour 

 to the prized American Walnut in its virgin state. 

 But its grain hardly possesses the variety and 

 beauty to be found in some of the finer specimens 

 of the transatlantic wood. Nevertheless we believe 

 our local product might well rival the American, 

 in the estimation of home wood-fanciers — to 

 coin a term — if it were placed before them in an 

 attractive form. The method which has become 

 of late years so fashionable with English cabinet- 

 makers of incising patterns in the dead unpolished 

 wood, and relieving them in gold, seems to many 

 judges, to be specially applicable to the nadoon, 

 the natural colour of which would afford 

 a striking contrast to the bright gold of such 

 incised patterns. The roots of the suriya too 

 possess a variety both in grain and colouring 

 which probably only demands scientific treatment 

 to be devoloped to suit the taste of home 

 manufactureis. 



Of Ceylon ebony and satinwood it is scarcely 

 necessary that we should speak. They are too 

 well-known, and too generally appreciated already, 

 to call for special remark. Nor do they, indeed, 

 come within the category of the woods which are 

 the present subject of attention. They are widely 

 grown in many other countries besides Ceylon, and 

 although our island growths possess attributes which 

 cause them to be largely in demand, the sources 

 of general supply are, as we have said, too varied 

 to cause us to feel disappointment that they should 

 have been passed over without remark in the 

 Conference to which we have alluded. But we r 

 think that that omission may have taught us a 

 useful lesson. On future occasions which may 

 occur, for exhibiting our island products in Eng- 

 land,— such perhaps as may be one day afforded 

 by the formation of a Museum for the proposed 

 Imperial Institute,— we should endeavour to 

 show furniture made after modern patterns from 

 those of our woods which seem likely to be 

 new and unknown to the trade at home. We 

 feel that Ceylon has no reason to hide its head 

 in this particular class of exhibit, and we feel 

 that if our furniture-makers would bestir them- 

 selves, and if they were aided by some European 

 advice as to the best means of developing the 

 colour and grain of our native woods, very use- 

 ful results might be attained. In our Tropical 

 Aijriculturiiit, we are republishing the full reports 

 which have appeared on the Timber Exhibits, as 

 the result of the Conference referred to, and al- 

 though there is no direct mention of Ceylon woods, 

 the information given is both instructive and 

 locally ioterestiog. 



