THE NORTHEEN FORESTS. 



[Part IX. 



Taking the area of the Jaffna peninsnla at seven hun- 

 dred square miles, Mr. Fergusox, whose experience as a 

 Government Surveyor entitles his authority to respect, 

 estimates that if one-fourteenth of the land be devoted to 

 palmyras, even at the rate of two hundred trees to an 

 acre, which is far below the ordinary ratio, " the number 

 of palms in this district alone must be close upon 

 7,000,000, the edible product of which supply one- 

 fourth of the food of 220,000 inhabitants." 



On the continent of India the oeconomical value of the 

 palmjTa is equally signal, its fruits affording a compen- 

 sating resource to 7,000,000 of Hindus, on every occasion 

 of famine or failure of the rice-crop. In fact, the pahnyra 

 fruit season has nearly as great an influence on the pe- 

 riodical immiofration of the coohes from the Coromandel 

 coast to Ceylon in search of employment on the coffee 

 estates, as that produced by the cutting of the rice har- 

 vest. In what is emphatically called the " Palmyra re- 

 gions," in the southern Dekkan, the saving of the fruit is 

 always followed by an increased emigration, including 

 numbers who had previously returned from Ceylon for 

 the express purpose of assisting at tliis important domestic 

 operation. 



that in all tlie western pai'ts of Hin- 

 dustan and Ceylon, the coco-nut tree 

 ^•ows abundantly and vigorously, 

 but there we rarely or never see a 

 palmyi-a. On the other hand, in the 

 eastern parts of Ceylon and Coro- 

 mandel, the palmjTa predominates, 

 and the coco-nut is rare, and those 

 few that do gi'ow are always to be 

 found in some solitary place. It is 

 true that instances may be known 

 where the two are gi'owing- together, 

 but always in less numbers and 

 sickly. I have seen an Amboina or 

 Palmvi'a tree perfect and of full 

 growth, which had been cultivated 

 with great laboiu" and was neverthe- 

 less alwaj'S barren, because that it 

 stood amongst many coco-nut trees." 

 The real cause of the baiTenness in 



the instance alluded to by Rmnphius 

 must have been that the palm grew 

 apart from a male tree of its ovra 

 species ; but unfortunately for the 

 general correctness of the piece of 

 foUi-lore thus recorded, although 

 at the time Eimiphius wi'ote the 

 " two nuts " had practically divided 

 Ceylon between them ; the coco-nut 

 monopolizing the south, and the 

 palmyra liaving colonised the north- 

 ern districts of the island ; the fallacy 

 of llie popular belief is now conclu- 

 sively demonstrated, as the plantations 

 of coco-nuts at Jatliia have recently 

 become so prodigious, as almost to 

 out-nuniber the palmjTas ; which 

 have in many instances been felled 

 to make room for their rivals. 



