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JOURNAL R. A. S. (CEYLON). [YoL. II., PART L 



people, or about 59 persons to the square mile. From these 

 facts we draw the conclusion, that either the soil is so 

 exceedingly barren as only to yield a precarious crop under the 

 greatest care and pains bestowed on its cultivation : that the 

 quantity of land available for cultivation is exceedingly limited 

 compared with the population : or that the cultivation is carried 

 on in an unskilful and slothful manner. Without doubt all 

 these causes exist, more or less, and operate to restrict the 

 agriculture of this people, varying in degree in different parts 

 of the country. 



In the absence of communication by roads, and the nature 

 of their cultivations chiefly restricting them to inhabit secluded 

 valleys, it is not surprising that their agriculture should be 

 carried on in the same rude and primitive manner as it was in 

 past ages, apparently unimproved either in the manner of work- 

 ing the ground or in the implements used for the purpose. 

 Their few wants being so easily supplied, there has been an 

 absence of every inducement to increased and improved tillage 

 whilst their superstitious observances respecting times and 

 seasons, handed down to them from a remote period, have had 

 their effect in tying them down to the customs of their fore- 

 fathers. 



In considering the circumstances which have combined to 

 keep the agriculture of the Sinhalese in its original primitive 

 form, the taxation of paddy lands must not be left out of view, 

 as unquestionably operating to prevent increased production. 

 The amount of the tax is uncertain, and assessed yearly by 

 persons appointed to that duty, and afterwards collected by a 

 renter or middleman, whose powers under the present law are 

 most vexatious at all times, and may at will be made highly 

 oppressive to the cultivator. It is a feeling implanted in the 

 human breast to resist extortion. The husbandman, seeing 

 that an increase of crops leads also to an increase of his own 

 burdens, and enables the tax-farmer to add to his annoyances, 



