7<» 



Scientific A grivuttwe. 



or other pastime. Any suggestion offered to them in the shape of agricultural] 

 improvement is viewed Ijy fchem with scorn and indifference. They are indeed a very 

 backward race, and their condition is very often a pitiable one. All their various 

 wants are met with paddy, and paddy is their " what not." All their necessaries of 

 life such as clothes, curry stuffs, oil, furniture, cooking utensils and even their betel 

 and arecanut are bartered for paddy, and it is no wonder that they exhaust their 

 stock within a few months, and they have recourse to the jungle in search of game 

 and honey to appease their hunger. 



The enterprising Jaffna man should find his way into the Vanni and shew his 

 brethren there the way to be benefitted by agriculture. The peninsula is over-popu- 

 lated, and the scope for cultivators there is very limited. It will therefore be in the 

 interests of the Jaffna man, too, that he finds his way into the mainland where by 

 benefitting himself he may benefit the Vanni cultivator also. I should, however, point 

 out that the Vanni cultivator is not without his own disadvantage to contend against. 

 He has to work in an unhealthy climate, he has to contend against wild beasts, he has 

 to work on his tanks and on his village clearings, he has to fence his fields and keep 

 watch over them at nights, none of which works the Jaffua cultivator has. He has 

 not again an insured water supply as the Jaffna man has in his wells. It is true that 

 he has tanks which depend wholly on a good rainfall, and if this fails his tanks also 

 and his cultivation stops. The wells in the Vanni are not so successful as those in the 

 Peninsula. 



But the Jaffna man I am sure will find his way to remedy these evils. He will 

 make a careful use of the water in the tank and will greatly avail himself of the 

 rain water which the Vanni cultivator does not in the least make any use of. The 

 Vanni man would not endeavour to supplement his water supply with wells, whereas 

 the Jaffna man would be always forward to make experiments and have always a 

 good supply of water at his command. It is therefore very essential that if the 

 agricultural operations in the North are to be extended, the congested population of 

 the peninsula should be made to move towards the mainland. 



