No. 57. — 1906.1 coconut cultivation. 



65 



but the great continuous extent of planting of which we are 

 quite sure was from the Kalu-ganga, southward to Bentota, 

 and from thence to Galle and on to Weligama, Matara, and 

 on to Dondra Head. At the same time it is unlikely that 

 this belt extended far inland, save where village topea or 

 gardens broke the continuity of the jungle or chena land. 

 The map which has been prepared through the courtesy of 

 the Surveyor-General and of Mr. Templeton of his staff, and 

 to which we now call your attention, indicates by different 

 colourings the successive stages in the advance of coconut 

 planting in Ceylon, so far as we are able to judge, from the 

 information and authorities laid before you. We begin with a 

 small patch of dark green colour with bars round Weligama, 

 indicative of the spot where the earliest nut or nuts floated 

 ashore from Sumatra, took root in the sand and gave Ceylon 

 its first coconut palm, perhaps 3,000 years ago. There must 

 have been a good deal of planting of the nuts in the neigh- 

 bourhood and at intervals in the country towards Galle long 

 before King Agrabodhi, according to the Mahdwansa in 589 

 A.D., gave the order to form a plantation from Weligama to 

 Dondra. For, as already mentioned, the Roman writer iElian 

 about the middle of the 2nd century of the Christian era, or 

 say 160 A. D., mentions on the authority of travellers that the 

 coast about Galle was covered with waving coco palms, and 

 further he records the notable fact that the palm trees grew 

 in regular quincunxes as planted by skilful hands in a well- 

 ordered garden. So we give in a second colouring (light green) 

 a sweep of country that must have shown palms to voyagers 

 up to 500 A.D. Then comes the historical planting of King 

 Agrabodhi, 589 A.D., coloured brown by itself, and equally 

 distinguished is the plantation ordered by King Prakrama 

 Bahu II. along the twelve miles of country between the Kalu- 

 ganga and Bentota, between 1240 and 1275 A.D., the colouring 

 being light red. Before this time, however, there was plant- 

 ing (about 1100 A.D.) between Ambalangoda and Bentota, 

 for which we have put in a dark red colouring. About the 

 same period, or a little later, there were also certain roadside 

 f 43-06 



