THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1884- 



the province. Some portions of the report I would like 

 to read, but I will merely state that he shows that, during 

 the last five years— the period in which there has been 

 irrigation — the land which b/is been cultivated has averaged 

 11,000 acres per annum, whereas in the five years prev- 

 iously the average was only 3,000 acres ; and whilst the 

 average crop in the latter period was only 141,000 bushels, 

 the average crop during the last five years has beeen 238,000 

 bushels. ( Applause. 1 This is what Mr. Fisher* says: — 

 " As far as we are capable of judging, the action of Govern- 

 ment in promoting and persevering in the restoration of these 

 works has been amply justified by results. We have placed 

 at every man's door a superabundance of cheap food and the 

 no less necessary supply of comparatively wholesome water. 

 We have arrested the progress of disease and put new 

 life into the people, and if we persevere in the same 

 line of conduct it is within our compass to place the 

 people of the province permanently beyond the reach of 

 the famines which have afflicted them in past years. 

 The opponeuts of irrigation allow of none of these things. 

 But they are considerations which it is impossible for 

 any humane government to ignore, and wheu it is shown 

 that, the amelioration of the condition of the people has 

 been attended by beneficial results of such magnitude as 

 the figures in this paper disclose, there can be no hesit- 

 ation iu continuing our efforts to better the condition of 

 the people and country." In conclusion I would say that 

 the work I did was to endeavour to interest every man 

 in the restoration of his own village tank, and the pre- 

 sent Governor is taking a more onward anil far more im- 

 portant step — viz., endeavouring to restore the great tanks 

 which will coutain a permanent store of water, and 

 which water will always be available in time of drought. 

 That is to be effected by damming up the rivers, and 

 at the present moment they are engaged in damming up 

 the great tank of Kalawewa with an embankment 60 feet 

 high and 5 or 6 miles long. This, I believe, will be 

 effected in two or three years, and will give an ample 

 and permanent supply to a series of tanks for a distance 

 of 60 miles. The whole scheme is now being system- 

 atically carried out, and I find in every p:irt of the island 

 where the good example has spread exactly the same re- 

 sults, both as regards the health and condition of the 

 people. (Applause.) 



Sir John Douglas, k.c.m.g.: Mr. Mosse having, as a pro- 

 fessional man, been in charge of large works in Oeylon 

 and elsewhere, naturally views the subject rather from the 

 engineering point of view. My right hou. predecessor and 

 myself naturally view the subject rather from the ad- 

 ministrative point of view, — that is to say, what it can do 

 for the people. People who live in England have no idea, 

 or at any rate have the faintest idea, of the importance of 

 rice to the Sinhalese villager. Our agriculturist lias beef, 

 mutton, pork, and other kinds of food, as well as bread, 

 but the Sinhalese villager is a Buddhist and a vegetarian, 

 and if he does not get rice he must go and find roots in 

 the forest, something unhealthy and bad for him, to take 

 the place of his ordinary food. In the oid days the native 

 rulers, knowing the villager need only work for his own 

 benefit seven or eight months of the year, determined, 

 during the remainder of the year, to organize the labour 

 for the general benefit in constructing receptacles for the 

 water necessary for the cultivation of the fields, and also 

 made rules by which they were obliged to labour for the 

 maintenance of those works. The British Government 

 took over the island of Ceylon at a time when there was a 

 great outcry about slavery, and the statesmen of England, 

 little understanding the situation in Ceylon, but urged by a 

 noble desire to purge the good name of England from the 

 shame which rested upon her iu connection with the West 

 Indies, said. " We will have no forced labour in Ceylon." 

 The cousequenco was that we destroyed at once the whole 

 machinery by which the great works of the Kandyan 

 kings were kept up; one by one they became neglected and 

 breached, and the people were reduced to the condition so 

 graphically described by Sir William Gregory. We have 

 lately found that it is consonant with the feelings and 

 traditions of the people to work for their own benefit on au 

 organized system, under rules which they make m their 



* Memorandum on the Results of Irrigation in the North 

 West Province, by Mr. F. C. Fisher, Government Agent, 

 dated Ajiuradhapuia, 15th December 1863. 



own villages, according to their native customs, and the 

 result has been the improvement in their condition which 

 Sir William Gregory so forcibly described. But there is 

 something more than food ; there is drink. The Sinhalese 

 villager is a water drinker, and, if he is to continue to be a ' 

 healthy man, must have wholesome water. Some fourteen 

 years ago I was staying at a small village in Ceylon. It 

 was the dry season. Outside the house was a tank, which 

 was dried up till there was a little pool about half the 

 size of this room, and about two feet deep. The buffaloes 

 were wallowing in the mud. This was the water the 

 people had to drink. I asked for some water for a bath, 

 and the people laughed. ' They said I might get some six 

 miles off,- and we sent the six miles. It was so bad 

 that, after being filtered six times through some towels, 

 it smelled so nasty that I opened three bottles of 

 soda water and washed my hands and face in that. 

 (Laughter.) It was very nice, but decidedly expensive, 

 and certainly beyond the resources of a Sinhalese 

 villager. When the people were reduced to bad food and 

 drinking water, 6Uch as I have described, can you wonder 

 that they should die out steadily ? I went through the 

 same country last November, and again in January of the 

 present year, I never saw such a striking contrast in the 

 condition of a people. The fever seemed to have departed. 

 The people were all fed and fat ; instead of having a scarcity 

 of food they were able, as Sir Wm. Gregory has said, to ex- 

 port food to other parts of the island. (Hear, hear.) I do 

 not pretend to say we have not had to buy our experience. 

 When we begun these irrigation works we got skilled gentle- 

 men out from Eugland, who had an idea that these Kandi- 

 au kings, not having been apprenticed to any great en- 

 gineering genius iu England — (laughter) — knew nothing 

 about the subject, and they said, " Oh, these men, what 

 could they know ; they were all wrong, and what we have 

 got to do is first to revolutionize everything." The result 

 was that some of our skilled engineers began to make water 

 run uphill, and do things of that sort, and for the last tiff eeu 

 or twenty years we have been finding out that after all 

 the Kandyan kings knew a great deal about the matter, a 

 great deal more than we did. Unfortunately, they had 

 not the appliances recent discoveries have placed at our 

 disposal to enable them to try to regulate the distribution of 

 the water; but they had a very good idea of making the 

 water run downhill, and we have found out what wise men 

 they were, and how wed they understood how to supply the 

 country with water on the principles of common sense. 

 (Hear, hear, and laughter.) At this late hour I will not 

 detain you, when there are other gentlemen anxious to ad- 

 dress the meeting, but I will say that, from my point of 

 view and from the point of view of Sir Wm. Gregory, we 

 cordially endorse what Mr. Mosse has said about the im- 

 portance of going on with the good work begun of late years. 

 It was begun by Sir Henry Ward ; it suffered stoppage for 

 a time ; it was taken up again by Sir Hercules Kobinson, 

 and alter him by Sir Wm. Gregory. Mistakes we have made, 

 and we have found out, I hope, how to avoid making mis- 

 takes in future, but, having bought our experience) I think 

 we ought to profit by it, and go on with the good work 

 which has been so well inaugurated and carried out by Sir 

 Wm. Gregory during his term of office. (Applause.) 



Mr. J. Ferguson : You have heard an interesting account 

 of ancient and modern irrigation works in Ceylon by Mr. 

 Mosse, who has considered the subject from the engineer's 

 point of view, and you have had the advantage of learning 

 the views and experiences of a former Governor aud tho 

 present Lieut.-Governor of Ceylon in Sir Wm. Gregory 

 and Sir John Douglas, who represent official authority. I 

 am neither engineer nor administrator, but woidd endeav- 

 our to give you, as a humble representative, some of the views 

 of the unofficial community of Ceylon, and my own impres- 

 sions on the subject of irrigation after 23 years' residence in 

 that island. Mr. Mosse has, undoubtedly, given a good deal of 

 technica and statistical information, \\ hich ought to be of use 

 in other colonies where irrigation is of importance, provided 

 the peculiar conditions of Ceylon — lying in the pathway of the 

 two mousoons. and with its generally abundant rainfall — is 

 borne in mind. But I cannot enter on technical points, 

 although there are a few unimportant corrections or ad- 

 ditions I would otter to Mr. Mosse. I concur in t e credit 

 to be given .to the Ceylon Public Works Department for 

 their execution of different irrigation works more especially 

 of recent years, aud would add, among others, the names 



