TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDENS 
BY 
J. 0. WILLIS, 
Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon. 
Botanic gardens in Europe were first established as an aid 
to the science of curative medicine, and date back to the 
foundation of the garden at Padua by the Venetian Republic 
in 1545; in the tropics, on. the other hand, they were started 
much later, and as an aid to the local agriculture, to introduce 
and distribute the useful plants of other countries. It is from 
their success or failure as applied to agriculture, therefore, that 
they must principally be judged. 
In the tropics better than in the temperate zones, one may 
see all stages of agriculture represented, from the very ear- 
liest — the collection of the wild roots and fruits of the 
forest —- to the latest and most up-to-date capitalist agricul- 
ture, as pursued by European planters, and one has conse- 
quently the opportunity better to investigate its history and 
evolution, as in the case with so many other deparments 
of study. 
A few primitive tribes may yet be found which do not cul- 
tivate the soil at all, but live entirely, so far as vegetable 
products are concerned, upon the wild fruits and roots of the 
forest. Such are the few survivors of the aboriginal Veddas of 
Ceylon. Now there can be little doubt that it was in this way 
that all races began the study of the productive capacity of 
the soil. By actual trial they would learn which plants of the 
local flora were good to eat, which were not, which were good 
