Gums, Resins, 



300 



[Oct. 1606. 



being a fairly promising industry for the North country. For the first 9 to 12 months 

 they had nothing there but cotton. They had enough difficulty with that. It was 

 an extremely difficult country in which to get labour, and the coolies took life very 

 easily and did not over-exert themselves ; and demanded 50 cents a day for doing it. 

 It took a great deal of time and trouble and expense before they got things square 

 and the cotton in. They got the land fairly clear, and rubber put out in October, 

 1904, and at intervals up till April, 1905. That was only about 16 months ago, and 

 the trees were now from 8 to 15 ft. high— varying iu height according to the time 

 they were put in. The girth was anything from 3 to 6 inches, and the trees were 

 growing very satisfactorily. Mr. Mee, who was in charge of the station, had had 

 experience of rubber in Kalutara, and he thought that on the whole the trees were 

 growing better than they did at Kalutara. Of course, they had not reached the 

 tapping stage ; and until they had reached that stage, he would not like to make any 

 definite statement that rubber would succeed. But if it succeeded, as it promised 

 to do, it would open up a large area for cultivation when the lands in the South 

 and South-East had been taken up. They had there a very good soil. A false 

 impression had been publicly created about the soil in the North. It came out 

 a great deal during the opening of the Northern railway, and it was described 

 as a desert and nothing but gravel and sand. That was by no means the case ; and 

 if anyone cared to go down to the station, they would see soil which could 

 not be seen anywhere whatsoever in South Ceylon. Anyone who had visited the 

 Experiment Station at Peradeniya knew they had very good soil there ; but the 

 soil at Maha-iluppalama beat the Experiment Station there hollow and was 

 really very good indeed. Of course, going down the North country people went 

 by the North Road, and travelled along the highest ridge of the lowcountry, 

 but if they came into the valleys there they would find a deep alluvial 

 soil which ran 10 to 15 feet deep in the centre of the valley and tapered off to 

 from 1| feet to 5 feet deep on the sides. The depth of soil in the centre was 

 at least 17 feet ; they had dug that depth and still there was no stone to be seen, 

 It was a perfectly soft blackish soil like an English garden soil, and its quality 

 was extremely good. It was on the whole better than any soil they could see 

 in the Central, South-East, or Uva Province, except some very fine soil on the 

 eastern side of the range near Lunugala. 



To return to the cotton crop, they sowed it in September and October 

 according to the rains, and the first crop came in March. They must have fine 

 weather from the beginning of February. The flowers came out in February : the 

 first crop was in March, and the second six weeks later, and the third crop, which 

 was a small one and hardly worth waiting for, came about the end of June. 



They had had considerable difficulty with labour which cost them a good 

 deal more trouble than it need have done. Of course they were pioneers, and he 

 thought any one following after them would be able to bring coolies on advances 

 and do it much cheaper. Since the railway had been opened, they had reduced their 

 rates from 50 cents a day to 41-25 cents, a drop of 8 or 9 cents, and they seemed 

 inclined to do a little more work than formerly. He would not trouble them with 

 returns, but for their Sea Island crop, which was got off a field of 20 acres, they got 

 R87 an acre ; and the return from the Egyptian crop, of which they had 30 acres at the 

 end of 1904 and the beginning of 1905, was R71*25 an acre. The Sea Island cotton is, 

 of course, the best grown in the world. It owed its quality entirely to selection of 

 the seed, and if this were not very carefully selected the quality dropped imme- 

 diately. Their seed was taken from a West Indian crop that sold for Is. 2d., and 

 they sold their crop for a shilling. Their seed had not been selected. The only 

 people who could have selected it were the West Indian Agricultural Department; 

 and they had their work cut out for them in selecting seed for themselves. They 



