CH. VIl] PLANT LIFE IN THE TROPICS. ACCLIMATISATION 33 



facilities for direct shipment of plants from one part of the globe 

 to another have increased, so the exchange work of Kew has 

 decreased in importance to the larger colonies. 



The old cry for new products that is, products not as yet 

 cultivated in the country must now be modified. Ceylon is 

 an interesting case in point. At one time coffee formed 95% 

 of the value of her exports. Tea, which has taken the place of 

 coffee in the mountains, though it covers a larger area than 

 coffee ever did, now only forms about 55% of the value of the 

 exports. In addition to this, Ceylon cultivates on a commercial 

 scale, rice (not for export), coconut palms, palmyra palms, cacao, 

 rubber, citronella oil, cinnamon, cardamoms, coffee, tobacco, 

 besides smaller (but usually growing) areas of camphor, vanilla, 

 coca, lemongrass, cotton, nutmegs, cinchona, annatto, cassava, 

 fruits 1 and vegetables 1 , a very varied and imposing list of pro- 

 ducts. There are now practically no new products of the old 

 kind which can be introduced into the country, and in which, 

 as was the case in tea, the competition is only with the products 

 of the tropical or sub-tropical races of mankind, or, as is the case 

 in rubber, with the product of wild jungle trees, collected by 

 very rough methods. Almost everything of value in tropical 

 agriculture is now in the hands, somewhere or another, of 

 Europeans, Americans, Chinese or Japanese, and in starting 

 any new product in any country a fierce competition will have 

 to be met from countries already growing that product. 



1 I.e. for export ; there are large areas devoted to growing these products for 

 home consumption. 



w. 



