A HANDBOOK 



OF 



TROPICAL GARDENING & PLANTING. 



CHAPTER I. 

 CLIMATE AND SOILS 



Climate. Climate is the principal factor which controls the 

 growth of plants, and constitutes the conditions which render a 

 country suitable for the abode of man and animals. One of the 

 first questions the planter or gardener in the tropics has to consider 

 is whether the climate is suitable for the cultivation he intends to 

 take up. Climate mainly depends upon latitude and altitude ; it is 

 usually hottest at the equator at sea-level, and coldest the furthest 

 away from it and the highest above sea-level. It is also, however, 

 materially affected by the distance fiom the sea, form and slope of 

 the land surface, the nature of the soil and its vegetation, and 

 other circumstances. The influence of altitude is specially notice- 

 able in the tropics, the temperature becoming appreciably cooler 

 as one ascends in the hills. Thus, while at Colombo it is hot and 

 tropical, at Xuwara Eliya, 6,000 feet above the level of the 

 sea, it is cool and temperate. For about every 300 feet of elevation 

 there is a reduction of about one degree in the temperature, and it 

 is estimated that for about every 270 feet elevation the effect on the 

 temperature is equivalent to receding a degree from the equator. 

 Thus, Kandy being about 1,500 feet above sea- level, its average 

 shade temperature is about 5 degrees cooler than that of Colombo. 

 At X u warn Eliva the difference is even more marked, so that if 



