472 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



5. The Government possesses a ginnery at 

 Maha llluppalama near Anuraclhapura, which 

 for the present should serve the purposes of the 

 northern part of the Island, if an announcement 

 were widely made that ginning would bo under- 

 taken there at a low rate. 



6. Cotton cultivation in Ceylon has been the 

 subject of several reports in recent years. One 

 was published as a Circular of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens by Dr. Willis and Mr Meo in 1906. 

 The second, similarly published, was by Mr 

 McCall, now Director of Agriculture in Nyasa- 

 land, and the third is in the form of a memo- 

 randum by Mr R H Lock which was trar smitted 

 to me with your letter No. 3,645 of Feb. 14, 1910. 



7. The report by Mr Mee and Dr. Willis was 

 written in 1906, and consists of a general state- 

 ment of the prospects of cotton cultivation in 

 Ceylon. It is assumed that Sea Island cotton 

 can be successfully grown in Ceylon, and in fact 

 it is suggested that Ceylon in some respects may 

 be even better adapted than the West Indies for 

 the growth of Sea Island cotton. The discursive 

 accounts which follow of the trials of Sea Island, 

 Egyptian (apparently Mit-Afiffi), and other cot- 

 tons at Maha Illuppallama in 1904 and 1905 can- 

 not, however, be regarded as affording any real 

 proof that any of these cottons was acclimatised 

 and could be continuously grown there with suc- 

 cess. A much larger acreage was sown than is 

 either necessary or desirable in such au experi- 

 ment. So far as can be seen, the crops of a first 

 sowing of seed gave fair, but not wholly satis- 

 jaetory results. Neither the Egyptian nor the 

 Sea Island cotton was irrigated. 



8. The trial of tho Indian Tinnevelly variety 

 is also referred to, and the conclusion is drawn 

 that it cannot be a profitable crop for Ceylon — a 

 conclusion which might have been reached with- 

 out experiment from the well-known data of 

 Southern India. The results recorded for all 

 cottons are, however, very meagre, and there is no 

 evidence that systematic experiments have been 

 conducted since. The same remark applies to 

 other varieties of cotton stated to be under trial 

 in this report, including "Upland 1 ' American 

 (variety not stated). 



9. This report does not afford any real gui- 

 dance as to cotton cultivation in Ceylon, and I 

 am not aware that any subsequent results 

 have been published. 



10. Mr McCall's report was written in 1909. 

 Accepting it as proved that Egyptian cotton is 

 suitable for Ceylon, Mr McCall advocates the 

 growth of Egyptian cotton at Maha llluppala- 

 ma under irrigation, and discourages the at- 

 tempt to grow other varieties. 



11. I have seen no systematic record of the 

 results obtained from trials on the lines recom- 

 mended by Mr McCall, but I understand that 

 the trials so far made have not been successful. 



12. The fact that there is a definite, but 

 somewhat irregular, rainfall in the district com- 

 plicates the attempt to grow cotton under irri- 

 gation, and it does not appear to be likely that 

 Egyptian cotton growing in Ceylon will be 

 attended with success, as it is improbable from 

 our experience in other countries that it will do 

 well and be of first-rate quality unless it is 



grown under conditions similar to those which 

 obtain in Egypt, where there is little or no rain- 

 fall and irrigation is entirely dopended upon. 

 Moreover, I have not been able to find analyses 

 of the soil at Maha llluppalama on record, and 

 therefore a comparison with Egyptian soil is 

 not possible. 



13. The last report is that by Mr R H Lock, 

 who advocates a return to trials of Sea Island 

 as probably the cotton best suited to Ceylon. 

 There is, however, as yet no evidence that Sea 

 Island cotton can be properly established in 

 Ceylon, and the well-known difficulties in con- 

 nection with the growth of this cotton of high 

 quality appear to meto be serious obstacles to its 

 success in the hands of the native cultivatior in 

 Ceylon. On the strength of the report of Mr 

 Mee and Dr Willis a trial of Sea Island cotton 

 on ground of five to ten acres was made near 

 Talawa, and not far from the Government Ex- 

 periment Station at Maha llluppalama, by the 

 late Mr Cobham Lea in 1909. I visited the fields 

 this year and found the plants sown in the pre- 

 vious year still standing and in boll, whilst conti- 

 guous was a field of young plants sown this year. 

 The seed was sown broadcast and no irrigation 

 was employed. The results, so far as I could 

 ascertain them, were most discouraging, and 

 the trials were undoubtedly a financial failure. 

 Specimens of this cotton have since been ex- 

 amined at the Imperial Institute, and prove to 

 be rather of Egyptian than of Sea Island type. 

 If therefore Sea Island seed was used in the first 

 year, considerable degeneration must have taken 

 place, which is what was to be expected under 

 the circumstances. 



14. I also inspected the trials made this year 

 at the Experiment Station at Maha llluppa- 

 lama on the lines suggested by Mr. McCall, Sea 

 Island, Egyptian, and " Upland " cotton being 

 grown under irrigation. By this time results 

 are probably available. I shall be surprised if 

 they are favourable, but in any case no conclu- 

 sion can be drawn from the results of the first 

 year alone. 



15. I am satisfied that no progress will be 

 made in the development of cotton growing in 

 Ceylon unless systematic and properly conducted 

 experiments are made under expert super- 

 vision. At present there is no one in Ceylon with 

 special experience in cotton cultivation. In the 

 absence of adequate experimental data it is im- 

 possible to reach any conclusion as to the kind 

 of cotton which is most likely to become accli- 

 matised in the Island, but I would recommend 

 that in any scheme of experimental work in the 

 future some of the well-known forms of " Im- 

 proved Upland " should be tried without irriga- 

 tion and with due regard to the rainfall. The 

 rainfall is unfortunately somewhat erratic in this 

 district, but not sufficiently so to render careful 

 trials undesirable. Under the name of " Im- 

 proved Upland" are included long-stapled forms 

 of American cotton which are in large demand 

 in Lancashire and command prices which are 

 little inferior to those of white Egyptian kinds. 



16. In many districts in Ceylon, especially in 

 those where neither tea nor rubber will succeed, 

 it would be well worth while to carry out sys- 

 tematic experimental work, but sucoess cannot 



