and Magazine of the Ce\ 



would be very short, the output of desiccated 

 nut was larger than any other year in the decade. 

 Mills are experiencing a run of very inferior 

 nuts this year, both in size and in quality of ker- 

 nel— doubtless owing to the prolonged drought: 

 practically 15 months, with but very little rain - 

 fall. Those who reckon on an outturn of three 

 nuts to the pound, desiccated, find that it is 

 nearer 3J. The copra man, too, is finding that 

 while he generally get a candy of copra from 

 1,100 nuts, it now requires a good 1,300 to 1,400 ; 

 and, consequently, they are feeling the pinch 

 same as the desiccating mills, several of which 

 are either shut down or have been going slow. 

 Of course, this is an exceptional year ; but some 

 people predict that nuts will be equally bad 

 next year owing to the continued shortage of 

 rainfall. Nuts in shell are far short of last year. 



The export of poonac is nearly even with our 

 best year, 1906 ; and no doubt this excess will 

 be well maintained. Yarn and fibre were very 

 dull during the quarter, many mills being shut 

 down, while the others have heen doing very 

 little. 



CEYLON: ITS INDUSTRIES AND 

 MATERIAL PROGRESS. 



BY JOHN FERGUSON, C.M.G. 



We make the following extracts from the 

 paper read by Mr. John Ferguson, c.m.g., before 

 the Colonial Section of the Royal Society of 

 Arts, on Tuesday, April 6th, 1909. 



But far more important to the natives (and to 

 many colonists) is our great industry in palm 

 cultivation : coconuts chiefly, nearly all round 

 the island, though mainly from Matara up the 

 west coast to Puttalam, and all over the Ne- 

 gombo, Chilaw, and most of the Kurunegala 

 districts — and also of the palmyra palm in the 

 north of the island, of arecas in Kegalla and 

 western districts, and of Kitul (Caryotavrens) 

 and the grand talipot (Corypha umbraculijeia), 

 peculiar to Ceylon in the western interior. But 

 until 100 years ago coconuts were used solely 

 to provide food, and light through its oil, for the 

 natives. 



THE FIRST CARGO OF COCONUT OIL 



shipped from Ceylon to Europe was in 1818 ; but 

 no great impetus was given to the trade till about 

 fifty years ago, when a great deal of planting 

 took place, and mills on a large scale for expres- 

 sing the oil were established in Colombo. Now, 

 coconuts— through the manufacture of oil, of 

 coir (the fibre), of desiccated coconut (for con- 

 fectionery, &c), and the shipment of copra (the 

 dried kernel), of poonac (the crushed cake 

 for stock feeding), and of the nuts them- 

 selves — form one of the largest of Ceylon indus- 

 tries and provide work (as well as a great deal 

 of their food) for a large number of the 

 people, the Sinhalese more particularly. 



It must be mentioned that the coconut palm, 

 which is supposed to flourish best on the sea- 

 coast, is successfully grown far in the interior, 

 in the Matale, Kandy, Dumbara, Badulla, and 

 other valleys, and also around towns in the drier 

 districts,such as Anuradhapura. Indeed Dr Willis 



on Agricultural Society. 493 



shows (see "Tropical Agriculturist" for January, 

 1909) that with irrigation this palm may be pro- 

 fitably cultivated right over the North -Central, 

 Northern, and Eastern districts wherever tanks 

 are restored or are in working order. 



Whatever may have been the case in the 

 North-central division, 1,200 to 1,700 years ago, 

 there can be no doubt that with its peculiarities 

 of soil, rainfall, and climate, Ceylon (at least 

 the S. W. portion) in the present day is far better 

 suited to grow crops of leaf (tea), of various 

 palm nuts (cocoa, palmyra, areca), of bark and 

 spices (cinnamon, cardamoms, pepper, &c), and 

 now of the latex or milk of rubber trees, than 

 it is for crops of cereals, whether of rice, maize, 

 or dry grain. Accordingly, the modern pro- 

 gress and prosperity of Ceylon is usually dated 

 from 1837, the year in which coffee-planting 

 on its hillsides began to attract general notice ; 

 and, with many vicissitudes, ups and downs, 

 this industry grew for 40 years until it reached 

 a maximum annual crop of a 1,000,000 cwt., 

 worth between four and five millions sterling 

 grown on some 200,000 acres. Then came its 

 downfall, an insidious fungus, which first ap- 

 peared on the leaves of coffee in 1869, gradually 

 weakening and practically killing the bushes, 

 so that by 1890, the export had fallen to 

 90,000 cwt., while now it is about 1,000 cwt. 

 grown on a few hundred acres. In ten years 



CEYLON LOST SOME 500 OF ITS PLANTERS 



while the industry was practically ruined. To she w 

 the great progress of scientific agriculture within 

 the past 30 years, the United States Agricultural 

 Department and the Dutch at Buitenzorg, Java, 

 leading the way (with Peradeniya, Ceylon, not 

 far behind,) I need only mention that Mr 

 Wilson, the theu and present Minister of Agri- 

 culture at Washington (a Scotchman born), 

 told me in 1904, that he felt certain his staff 

 could overcome the coffee, as they had baffled 

 the orange, fungus, if they had encountered it 

 in the "seventies;" while Dr. Treub in Java 

 showed me last September a coffee plant which 

 had been improved and developed until it was 

 proved to be immune so far as Hemileia 

 oastatrix was concerned. Similar success has 

 attended the work on cacao, tea, and palms of 

 our Scientific Staff at Peradeniya (first started 

 on a liberal scale by Sir West Ridgeway), and so 

 we no longer fear the diseases or enemies of our 

 tropical products. Most fortunately for the 

 Ceylon planter, before his cinchona collapsed, 

 experiments in tea cultivation and preparation 

 demonstrated a new and profitable product far 

 better adapted to its climatic conditions and 

 3oil than ever coffee was or possibly could be. 

 The latter was an annual fruit crop (of cherries), 

 the failure of which meant a whole year's labour 

 gone; while successive leaf crops from tea can 

 safely be counted on for at least nine months of 

 the year, the picking of the plant by the coolie 

 women and children going on at intervals of eight 

 to ten or twelve days. With 



WONDERFUL RAPIDITY DID THE PLANTING OF TEA 



extend until the 10,000 acres planted by 1880 

 had increased to 220,000 by 1890, and now, in 

 1909, we have between 390,000 and 400,000 acres; 

 but some 60,000 of these are interspersed with 



