Edible Products. 



58 



Maniocca Cultivation. 



By J. P. Lewis, m.a., c.c.s. 



It is only within the last quarter of a century that much attention has been 

 paid to the cultivation of maniocca or cassava (Manihot utilissima). But it has been 

 known in the Northern Province of Ceylon since Dutch times, for I find in the 

 Colombo Journal of 1833 from a letter of Captain Nagel, Land Regent of the Wanny. 

 that it was apparently growing in Mannar in 1792.* In the Mullaittivu District before 

 the period mentioned it served merely the purpose of helping to form live fences,t 

 but as regards modern times, it is only since 1885, when two cart loads of the plant 

 from Jaffna were sent to Pntukndiyiruppu by the late Mr. Robert Massie, Assistant 

 Government Agent, and planted there, that it has been used in that district as an 

 article of food. Here history repeated itself, and Mr. Massie only did what Captain 

 Thomas Nagel did ninety years before him, but it is to be hoped with more lasting 

 results. Here we have Captain Nagel, 114 years ago acting as if he belonged to the 

 Agricultural Society, introducing maniocca and distributing leaflets in Sinhalese 

 and Tamil describing the plant. It is unknown, strange to say, in the Mannar 

 District, where it would, from Captain Nagel's letter, appear to have been first 

 introduced by the Dutch. 



In the Jaffna Peninsula it is cultivated in all the divisions except Pachchilaip- 

 palli and Vadamaradchi East. In Tenmaradchi it is cultivated in the villages of the 

 Navatkuli, Chavakachcheri and Kachchai parishes. It is cultivated in the Islands 

 with the exception of Delft. In Vadamaradchi West it is cultivated but not 

 extensively. Recently there has been a little cultivated in the villages of Maddu- 

 vilnadu, Ponnaveli and Tampiray of the Punaryn Division and in Malla of the 

 Tunukkay Division. There is none in Karaichchi or Karunavalpattu. The divisions 

 where it is chiefly cultivated are therefore Jaffna and the three Valikamams, and in 

 these the cultivation has greatly extended within the last ten years, and in the 

 parishes of Tenmaradchi named above the quantity cultivated has increased nearly 

 three-fold within that period. In the Islands Division there was a considerable 

 increase in 1905, the first year in which there was any cultivation to speak of, as the 

 people devoted most of their time to tobacco cultivation. This was in Karritivu. 



The approximate extent cultivated in the Jaffna Peninsula is : — 



Valikamam North ... ... ... acres 570 



Valikamam West ... ... ... ... 160 



Valikamam East ... ... ... ... 50 



Jaffna ... ... ... ... ... 50 



Tenmaradchi ... ... ... ... ... 30 



Vadamaradchi West ... ... ... ... 15 



Islands ... ... ... ... ••• 10 



It is noteworthy that the divisions with sandy soil, which is best suited to 

 the plant, are pre-eminently those of Tenmaradchi, The Islands, Pachchilaippalli and 

 Vadamaradchi East, in the two former of which there is very little cultivated, and in 

 the last two none at all. 



The extension of cultivation of the plant is due to the yam having become 

 a popular article of food among the poorer classes in these divisions ; in fact, it is 

 described as having, in most of the divisions in which it is cultivated, become a 

 popular article of food, and in Valikamam West, in fact, the staple article of food of 

 the lower classes and as having taken the place of pinaddu, the preparation of which 



* See Annexure A. 



f I ha m seen it lately growing in fences at Pampaimadu and other villages in the Mullaittivu 



District. 



