and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



99 



ORANGE-GROWING IN CEYLON AND 

 IN OTHER TROPICAL LANDS. 



We have come upon an interesting letter ad- 

 dressed by the late Mr. W. Ferguson, f.l.w., to 

 the editor of the Observer in 1S81 on the above 

 subject, but never published, [t runs as fol- 

 lows : — 



" 1 fear that you cannot make a fair com- 

 parison between Ceylon and the regular orange- 

 growing countries you refer to. In the latter, 

 oranges are grown in groves and over large 

 extents like our coffee (tea) fields, whereas in 

 Ceylon I do not know any place whe»:e an 

 extent of ground has been set apart for 

 orange trees alone. Mr. ULM Brown tried to 

 grow all kinds at Mahara ; but I do not think 

 he succeeded. The orange trees in Ceylon are 

 isolated plants, growing round houses and in 

 gardens amongst other plants, and one would be 

 at a loss to know where all the oranges sold 

 in Colombo come from. Calaha estate has 

 been famous for its oranges for the last 25 

 years or so, but they are planted in avenues 

 along the roads in the coffee. They have not 

 been so good nor so plentiful for some years 

 past, I think. You know that we grow the 

 large and small Mandarin oranges, the Jama 

 (or Java) naran and Heenjamanaran, varieties of 

 the Citrus aumntium, but the common orange 

 grown here, is, I think, an inferior variety of 

 the same species — also the Spanish orange. I 

 suppose the immunity of this plant and the 

 others from disease arises from the fact of 

 their isolation or scattered positions. There 

 may he something also in the fact that our 

 trees are of Indian origin, and not of European 

 or West Indian." 



A planter who has given someattentton to t he 

 cultivation of oranges in a high district, after a 

 perusal of the above, remarked : — 



" I knew the Kitoolmoola-Galaha aveuue 

 well in the early 'seventies, but I fancy those 

 trees are all dead and gone ere this as the citrus 

 family out here has suffered greatly from blight s 

 of sorts for many years, and it is only liberal 

 cultivation which keeps them going now-a-days. 

 Young trees suffer just as much as old, and 

 I recall one authority prophesying ten years 

 ago that all our orange trees were doomed. 

 He was no mean authority in the botanical 

 line, but he was not quite correct there, as 

 though I have lost a few, f have still many 

 trees over 30 years old, which are as vigorous 

 as ever they were." 



We had hope to gather some practical informs 

 tion from Bonavia's big volumes on tho orange ; 

 but a reliable critic considers Bouavia far too 

 pedantically scientific, and inclined to make 

 mountains out of molehills. One way or other 

 there must now be a very great number of 

 orange trees growing in the hills as well as low 

 country of Ceylon and at times the fruit 

 quite abundant in our markets ; but at other 

 seasons it is very scarce and high prices are 

 paid in Colombo for a few oranges up to 20 to 

 30 cents each when required for a special, per- 

 haps, medical purpose. We have heard an ex- 

 perienced medical practitioner, long in Kanily, 

 declare that his own favourite treatment of 

 himself when out of sorts, was by "■oranges" 

 — so many according to the seriousness of the 

 attack— rather than any drug ! And many old 

 residents find great advantage to health in 

 beginning the day with one or two orang js and 

 sometimes the more bitter they are the better. 

 Moantime, as regards orange culture in Ceylon, 

 can any one tell us if much success has attended 

 the importation and planting of grafted oranges 

 of recent years ? After writing this, we thought 

 of referring to tho gentleman who had most to 

 do with importing, and here is the result : — 



Mr A J Pearson, as is well-known, has been 

 taking a keen practical interest in the importa- 

 tion of grafted fruit trees to Ceylon, but he was 

 unable to tell an Observer reporter who saw him 

 today how far his efforts have been successful 

 except to state in broad outline that the experi- 

 ment, owing to climatic conditions, has no 

 turned out in some cases as well as he expected. 

 He has supplied, he says, during the past few 

 years, thousands of grafted orange trees from 

 Australia and he agrees with us in thmkin 

 that it would be very interesting to know how 

 far these have been successful. He be- 

 lieved in some districts the climate has 

 been in the way of successful results 

 while in drier districts the trees have turned 

 out fairly well. He is of opinion that 

 we should call for reports from those 

 who went in for the experiment and needless 

 to say we shall be only too glad to publish in 

 our columns results sent to us. In some cases 

 the trees have grown satisfactorily, but have 

 failed to produce fruit of the colour they as- 

 sume in their native habitat. In Hatton the 

 ripening season has been found to be un- 

 suitable for the grafted oranges, while on the 

 Badulla side they have done much better, 

 although Mr. Pearson has not been informed 



