October i, I88 9 .1 tNE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
239 
there for about six months. If suffered to remain, 
it would of course spring up into a tree, but , the 
natives pluok it, and by scraping and washing 
convert it into a favourite article of food. When 
treated by the process for making arrowroot, it 
produces a starch even superior to it, and it can be 
made at Jaffna and Calpentyn where palmyra 
trees abound for about 3d per lb. 
Yams. — These are most abundant, and in the 
more elevated parts of the island attain a great 
size. There is a variety which has the exact flavor 
of the potato when carefully boiled. The latter 
root grows well in Nuera Ellia, from whence it 
finds its way to all the bazaars, and the sweet potato 
is very common. Starch in great variety can be 
procured from all the tribe by the process hereto- 
fore described, and would pay very well. Immense 
quantities of potato starch are used in the weaving 
mills at home under the name of Dextrine or 
British gum, a substance formed by roasting the 
starch. The average price is about £40 per ton. 
The day must come when the manufacture of 
starches for which Ceylon offers such great facilities 
will meet with the attention that it deserves from 
enterprising persons. It requires so little capital, 
and tbe processes are so simple, that many may be 
expected to devote their time to it. 
CAOUTCHOUC AND ITS SUBSTITUTES. 
The tree which produces mainly the Caoutchouc 
of commerce (Ficus Elastica) is not indigenous 
to Ceylon, though magnificent specimens of it are 
to be seen at Peradenia, but almost any quantity 
of milky viscid fluid, bearing the greatest resem- 
blance to it can be procured from the different 
varieties of Kuphorbiacoe which abound in the 
island. The Exceecaria Agalloclmm, Tilli of the 
Tamils, and the Artocarpus Integrifplia (Jak), yield 
a juice in great abundance, which might easily 
be mistaken for Caoutchouc. 
But the characteristics in each case are the 
same : on being plunges into boiling water, the 
fluid rapidly acquires consistence, draws out in 
threads like the genuine substance, and in 
that state will receive and retain impressions, but 
as soon as it gets cold, the pliaDUity is lost, 
and it breaks, if you try to draw it into threads 
or to increase its tenuity. It will rub out pencil 
marks, and whenever submitted anew to the 
action of the hot water it exhibits the properties 
of Caoutchouc. The question of its value as a 
waterproofing material, or as a subsistute for 
Caoutchouc, in some of the numerous uses to which 
the latter is applied, is well worth the attention 
ot the practical chemist. A good method of send- 
ing the milk home for examination and report would 
be to apply it with a brush, as it is drawn 
from the tree to the inside of a clean case or 
cask. When the first layer was dry, another 
should be laid on, and in this way a mass of 
solid milk would be in time accumulated, not 
liable to fermentation or damage from keeping. 
If it could be turned to account, the supply might 
be depended upon as being perfectly inexhaus- 
tible. 
TOBACCO. 
The article of Tobacco is strangely neglected 
by our countrymen in Ceylon, considering tbe 
extent to which it is grown, the excallence of its 
quality in the green leaf, and the vast impetus 
that might be given to the cultivation, were foreign 
markets opened for it. A very large quantity is 
raised in Jaffna, nearly the whole of which goes 
to Travancore, where the Raja monopolises the 
sale of the article. The consumption of 
Tobacco by the natives is very large, and very 
little of it comes from India, indeed so much is the 
Kaymel growth prized, that the leaves sell at 8s or 
10s per lb. When made up into cigars, it is 
frequently prefered by Europeans to Manillas, and 
there is a capital story told by a distinguished 
person who caried home a quantity and requested 
one of the first tobacconists in London to smoke 
a few of them, and say what he thought of the 
flavor of the new importation. In due time the 
report was made, the cigars were pronounoed 
to be " good smoking, but not at all fit for the 
English market. Oh no, there was suca a strong 
flavor of Otto of Rose about them." As the 
laughing querist informed the shopkeeper, the 
cigars cost less than a farthing each, which left 
but a small margin to cover the cost of the 
Otto of Roses. 
There is of course much difference in the 
strength, and flavor of the tobacco grown in 
various districts ; but the best and the worst 
are equally ill dealt with, from the want of a 
method of curing the plant. All that the cultivator 
does to fit his tobacco for sale, is to hang up 
the leaves to dry, and it is frequently seen in 
the merchants' godown, mottled with green, brown 
and yellow colors. The true aroma of the plant 
is never developed, for that can only be brought 
out by employing pressure upon large quantities 
of heaped leaves. The proper method of curing 
the leaf is as follows: — 
The leaves when cut down should be tied 
together, at the foot stalks, and hung across a 
line or pole to dry in the shade, care being taken 
to turn them from time to time, and to exclude 
moisture. When they are perfectly dry, they 
should be taken down and placed in a heap, 
the mass being at least a ton in weight. Heavy 
pressure must then be applied and continued for 
about ten days or a fortnight. The effect of this 
process is to induce a species of fermentation 
which permeates the whole heap, renders the 
leaves of a uniform color throughout, and evolves 
as well a certain volatile essence, which gives 
almost a new flavor to the tobacco. Considering 
that the average price of Jaffna Tobacco is 
very low, and that the demand for the cured 
article never ceases, it is clearly one of the 
safest, as it would certainly be one of the cheapest 
experiments, to purchase a sufficient quantity of 
the leaf at the proper season of the year, and 
to ascertain if the Ceylon article would really 
be made to compete with foreign growths. It 
is asserted by persons, whose opinions are entitled 
to respeot, that it is only in the curing and 
subsequent manufacture that Manilla Tobacco is 
superior to our Island samples ; and if this be 
correct, a very great addition might be made to 
the wealth of tne Colony. All that is necessary, 
in the first instance, is to guard against the 
receipt of badly-dried leaves, or to buy them freshly 
cut. The manufacture could not fail to be a 
paying one.* 
DRUGS AND MEDICINAL SUBSTANCES. 
A vast number of articles recognised in the 
Pharmacopoeia are to be found in Ceylon, and may 
generally be had at cheap rates, always supposing 
that there is no dearth of population where they 
grow. Every variety of Strychnos, including of 
course the Nux Vomica, is to be met with in 
abundance, and throughout the Central and North- 
* In 1888 Oeylon exported 57,282 cwt. o£ tobacco, 
valued at Kl,236,307.— Ed. 
