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the “chena”, the field of perennial crops, such as coconuts, might 
be derived. 
When the European nations first appeared in the tropics, 
most of the countries there had probably reached this last 
stage, but it would appear very probable that trade between 
the different countries was very small, and mainly overland. 
Consequently, the useful plants grown, let us say in Java, would 
practically be entirely different from those grown in India, and 
these again different from those of tropical Africa or America. 
The most obvious first aid to agriculture, that could be in- 
troduced by trading nations, was therefore to carry from one 
country to another the useful plants growing in them. Maize 
might be brought, for example, from America to India, rice 
taken the other way. The first comers, the Portuguese, set 
about such work vigorously, though there is no evidence that 
they established botanic gardens for the purpose; indeed the 
botanic garden did not commence in Europe until some time 
after the Portuguese had appeared in the tropics. They carried 
many useful plants from east to west, and vice versa, a feat 
which was considerable in those days of small and slow vessels, 
which moreover had to go round the southern capes. To take 
only one illustration of their work, they introduced into Ceylon, 
which belonged to them for 150 years, the pineapple, the 
guava, the coffee, the papaw, the chilly, the cotton, the custard- 
apple and many other plants which are now everywhere familiar 
in native gardens there. 
The next comers to the tropics were the Dutch, who went 
on with the work carried on by the Portuguese, and intro- 
duced many more useful plants to the various countries that 
came under their rule. In the middle of the eighteenth century 
it oceurred to them that the institution of botanic gardens, 
used in Europe for medicinal purposes, would be of use in 
the tropics for the introduction, and still more for the accli- 
matisation, of plants. Perhaps the first to be opened such lines 
was that of Ceylon, for there appears to have been a garden 
there since about 1760. The famous garden of Buitenzorg in 
