March i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. . 619 
in for any great international competition she would 
win first-class honours for tea. 
THE TEA, COFFEE, AND COCOA IN- 
DUSTRIES OF CEYLON, 
By John Loudoun Shand. 
Ever since Bishop Heber, with missionary zeal and 
poetic license, drew his well-known word-picture of 
Oeylon ; ever since Emerson Tennent gave the world 
his classic and unrivalled " Oeylon ; " still more, since 
Ceylon became a favoured outlet for the employment 
and investment of the youth and capital of the motht r 
country, and a great producing source of common 
articles of daily food, attention has been much 
directed towards it, and the name has become familiar 
to English ears ; but changing circumstances, and the 
rapid march of time, soou make obsolete the history 
of oommeroial enterprises which have tropical agricul- 
ture for their parent ; and my desire is to convey to 
this Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manu- 
factures, and Commerce information, as accurate and 
as condensed as possible, upon industries the promotion 
of which is mutually important and mutually advan- 
tageous to producer and consumer, to mother couutr y 
and colony. 
A sketch of the position and prospect of these in- 
dustries which have effected so vast and so beneficial a 
change on the scene of production would be necessarily 
mcomrjlete without a brief description of Oeylon, and a 
brief reference to the condition of the island prioi to 
these developments. 
. Ceylon is situated at the extreme south-east of the 
Indian empire ; it contains about 25,000 square miles, 
and has a population of about 3,000,000 ; the land all 
round the sea-borde is flat, but in the centre of the 
island there are mountain ranges rising to a height of 
8,300 feet above sea level, and it is chiefly upon the 
slopes of these hills that the cultivation of tea, coffee, 
end cocoa is carried out. 
The climate is very variable, more so in extremes of 
dryness and moisture than of temperature, the rainfall 
varying from 35 inches annually in some parts of the 
low country, to 230 inches on the western slopes of the 
hills exposed to the full force of both north-east and 
south-west monsoons ; but as an abundant and well- 
distributed rainfall is essential to the successful culti- 
vation of the products I am describing, these industries 
are generally carried out under healthful climatic 
conditions. 
Just as the Oeylon of today is the great centre of 
eastern transhipment, the converging point for steamers 
from Europe, Iudia, China, and Australasia, so from 
its geographical position, very early in the commercial 
history of our world, it became the emporium at which 
the merchants of Ohina used to meet the Arab traders 
from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and the natural 
wealth of Ceylon, its ivory and peacocks, its pearls and 
precious stones in great variely, its cinnamon and rare 
wood-, made it a great point of primitive commercial 
attraction. 
In 1505, the Portuguese, who were then the great 
navigators of the world, seized possession of the mari- 
time provinces of Ceylon, attracted towards it partly 
by its geographical position near India, which they 
already looked to with longing eyes, and partly by the 
doubtless fabulous rumours of its immense wealth. 
The Portuguese occupation extended over a century 
and a half ; but beyond the Roman Catholic religion, 
which they established and somewhat forcibly inculca- 
ted, a few descendants of mixed race, who still cling 
ton Portuguese patois, and honorific names and titles, 
which the natives eagerly embraced and jealously main- 
Bin, but /title remains to mark Port ugtiese supremacy. 
In 1656, the Dutch ousted the Portuguese, and held 
possession of maritime Ceylon for 140 years. Ohurches, 
schools, seats of justice, canals, roads, the stematic 
extension of the great cinnamon and coconut industries, 
and the introduction and successful cultivation of 
many economic plants, mark an era of activify and 
advancement, but material progress was confined to 
the maritime provinces, for, sullen and secure behind 
their mountain fastnesses, the Kandyan Highlanders, 
though willing to trade and barter, resented intrusion. 
In 1796, the British dispossessed the Dutch, and the 
treaty of peace of Amiens ceded to the Dutch the richer 
and far larger island of Java, and the more importantly 
situated Ceylon remained British. 
After several years of constant embroilment and 
harassing petty warfare, the Kandyan king, was, in 
1815, deposed and banished to India, and British rule 
was established all over Oeylon, the Kandyans them- 
selves, though they had declined to yield to the slave- 
driving Portuguese or the trade- monopolisiug Dutch, 
being not averse to acoept a government which offered 
them a far greater measure of freedom and justice 
than they had enjoyed under the tyrant who had been 
dethroned, and from this date, with the exception of 
one or two instances in which excess of zeal or indis- 
cretion on the one part, and individual desire to gain 
or regain power on the other, led to petty rebellion, 
the cordial relations between British and Kandyans 
have become steadily more and more closely knit, 
ai.d prosperity baa almost continuously advanced. 
Coffee (Cofea Arabica) was introduced into Ceylon 
by the Aribs, * who, doubtless, allured by the con- 
trast between the evergreen and beautiful island and 
their own sterile homes, occasionally prolonged their 
periodical visits, and have left unmistakable evidence 
of their incursions in a progeny of mixed descent. 
Flowers form a favourite votive offering at the 
Buddhist shrines, and centuries before the Christian 
era, this religion was firmly established in Ceylon, and 
coffee seems to have been at first planted in the vicinity 
of temples rather for its beautiful and fragrant 
jasmine blossom than for its more practical purpose ; 
in time, however, the Sinhalese appreciated the excel- 
lence of the bean, and became, as all who have access 
to pure coffee do, a nation of coffee-drinkers, ami a 
small commerce was carried on iu coffee with the Dutch, 
the exports, however, never exceeding 3,000 cwt. 
Several years after the political settlement, attention 
was drawn towards the Kandyan hills, as a possible 
field for the even then surplus British capital and in- 
dustry, and the success which had attended the crude 
cultivation of the Kandyans, coupled with the im- 
minent manumission of slaves in the coffee-producing 
West Indian islands, pointed at coffee as a possible 
source through which the latent wealth of Oeylon 
might be profitably developed. Sir Edward Barnes, the 
Governor of Ceylon, himself formed one the first plan- 
tations, and before long clearings for coffee were made 
on several different ranges of hills. 
The enterprise was of course subject to all the 
vioissitudes inseparable from an investment of which 
knowledge could alone be gained by experience. Fail- 
ures and successes alternated, and on more than one 
occasion the withdrawal of credit, and the depreci- 
ation in value of coffee, caused stagnation and threat- 
ened collapse. But, in spite of all difficulties, coffee 
in time became not only the staple export from 
Oeylon but the pivot upon which nearly all other ex- 
ports and imports depended, and the means whereby 
the island was raised from the mere negative position 
of a naval and military station, > nd attained a height 
of progressive civilisation unsurpassed in her Majes y's 
dominions. 
There are, of course, many operations necessary be- 
fore forest land can be turned into a coffee plantation. 
After the selection aud survey of the land, the trees 
on the area intended to be planted are felled, and 
when sufficiently dry are burnt off. The laud thus 
* Notwithstanding the high authority of Tennent, 
wej have been compelled on full inquiry to hold the 
conviction that coffee was not known in Ceylon until 
the Dutch introdnoed its culture. — Ed. T. A. 
