18 TEA 



ill jungle-clearing, which has only to be done at in- 

 tervals, and they are experts with the axe. 



Whilst we are having lunch at the hotel, overlooking 

 Kandy's beautiful lake among the hills, I want to tell 

 you something of imj)ortaiice about the estates in the 

 Ceylon highlands. Ceylon, having proved by experi- 

 ments that rubber would grow in this country on 

 heights up to about 2,000 feet, began to plant out rubber 

 seedhngs on the hillsides as a commercial venture. 

 As a result of this enterprise, she has already increased 

 her power as a competitor in the popular new industry 

 of plantation rubber ; so much so, that more and more 

 acres on the lower slopes of her hills are being trans- 

 formed from tea-lands into rubber lands. Some of the 

 up-country estates have tracts of rubber-trees which 

 are already yielding milk ; and opposite the factory 

 where the leaves of the tea-plant are dealt with, there 

 is now a factory where the rubber milk is turned into 

 a sohd material. On other plantations, young rubber- 

 trees are growing up amidst the tea bushes, and within 

 a very few years the dwarfs will be ousted by the giants, 

 as was so recently the case in the lowlands. 



CHAPTER V 



EN ROUTE TO A CEYLON TEA ESTATE {continued) 



Will tea remain the staple product of Ceylon ? 



That is the question which is interesting many 

 people to-day, particularly those who have business 

 interests in the tea trade of other countries. And 

 Ceylon's reply is, on the face of it, a very hopeful one, 

 both for people who do business in Ceylon tea, and 



