TROPICAL HORTICULTURE. 19 



hence tlie cultivated, plants thrive luxuriantly, but so do weeds 

 and foes. This is illustrated in a striking manner by the 

 growth of Coffee in Ceylon. Everything favored the Coffee plant. 

 ^N'ature was in every way most propitious, but the conditions 

 were favorable also to destructive fungi, and these began their 

 disheartening work. The most destructive of these, here and. 

 there assisted, as I have already said, by a destructive insect, 

 ravaged the plantations so completely that the excellent Ceylon 

 Coifee became almost lost to commerce. 



It is therefore warfare of a most unrelenting kind which man 

 must wage against the foes of cultivated plants in the tropics. 

 He must at every point aid his proteges which have been ren- 

 dered almost completely helpless by long-continued assistance 

 from man. When the hand or aid of man is withdrawn, the cul- 

 tivated plant either falls an easy prey to its foes or it relapses 

 into a sort of quasi-defence, which often suggests the wild con- 

 dition from which it sprang. 



While, therefore, there is very much to encourage the novice in 

 tropical horticulture there is very much that is preeminently dis- 

 couraging. Tropical horticulture is far from being a sinecure. 

 It demands earnest study of the conditions of plant life in all its 

 relations, and it requires, also, a knowledge of the difficulty of 

 getting good work done under tropical skies. Under exceptional 

 conditions good work is done by natives, but as a rule they are 

 apathetic and it is hard to secure faithful service. The young 

 man who leaves a northern home for tropical venture must make 

 up his mind to hard work under unfamiliar conditions. With 

 this steadily in mind such ventures, under the precautions 

 referred to, can be reasonably successful. 



[The lecture was illustrated throughout by stereopticon views, 

 chiefly of Ceylon, the Straits settlements, Java and the ^Malayan 

 Archipelago, together with some of the newer plantations in 

 Xorthern Queensland and Polynesia. Professor Goodale also re- 

 ferred to a Chinese book on the cultivation of Rice, in the Library 

 of the Horticultural Society, with plates giving a vivid idea of 

 the cultivation of that grain in China.] 



