September t, 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
209 
IMPEOVED EICE CULTUEE IN CEYLON. 
The Director of Public Instruction has received a 
telegram from the Assistant Government Agent of 
Trincomalee, indicating that no manure was used 
in the Toppur experiment, so that the excellent 
result is to be traced mainly to the system adopted 
of planting out seedlings in the prepared soil in- 
stead of sowing the seed broadcast. This system 
is not new. It has long been applied and with 
great success to the culture of wheat in Europe, 
maize in Amorica and even to rice in Java and 
elsewhere, and always with the result of improving 
the yield in quantity and quality. Experiments 
in Ceylon so far seem to show that the result of 
the supersession of the slovenly native mode of 
cultivation by a system of improved tillage and 
culturo is that (with a great saving of seed grain) 
the yield is increased from 8-fold to 115-fold, with- 
out the stimulus of manure. With fertilizing 
materials (will Mr. Green kindly particularize ?) 
added to improved tillage and scientific culture, re- 
turns have been raised in quantity to over 300- 
fold, with an immense improvement in the quality 
of the grain. It would be well if in respect to 
both sets of experiments the effects on straw were 
stated, as this product has an important bearing 
on what is at the very root of improved culture, 
the rearing of a breed of healthy and strong draft 
cattle. After all is said, what Mr. Green has com- 
municated, although highly interesting and so far 
satisfactory, amounts, as Mr. Green will readily 
admit, but to the results of special and isolated 
experiments. To judge fully of what may reason- 
ably be hoped for from operations on a large scale, 
we must imitate Oliver Twist and ask for "more." 
Was the site of the experiment at Toppur virgin 
soil ? or was it previously aswedumized and 
cultivated land ? In the latter case, of course, the 
offeots of previous manuring might more or less 
enter into the result. If, as we presume, a piece of 
virgin soil was chosen, then experiments ought to be 
continued, the land being cultivated once or twice a 
year, so that data may be available to show how soon, 
under the improved method of cultivation and excep- 
tionally heavy cropping, the soil will become ex- 
hausted, so as to "necessitate a resort to fallow- 
ing or manuring. It seems to stand to reason 
that the soil would be more speedily exhausted 
under a system which compels it to yield over 
100-fold, than under the native custom of thick- 
sowing broadcast whereby a return of only 8-fold 
is harvested. Then wo must, to aid sound con- 
clusions, have full details of the comparative cost 
(as far as it can be possibly ascertained) of 
thstwo modes of culture. We quoted as character- 
istic of the poor " fusionless " natives what thoy 
said to the Mudaliyar. They could not, forsooth, 
alTord to pay for the necessary cooly labour to 
carry out the system of planting seedlings, with 
the other operations of improved culture. These 
people require to be taught the very alphabet of 
political economy. They must be told that capital 
in money is but the accumulation of the wages 
or earnings of labour, — told so in the simplest vernac- 
ular of course. The ownors of small holdings of 
land, with no money savings (the condition, wo 
u|i]ioso, of nino-tenths of the rice cultivators of 
Oeylon), must, instead of absurd talk about em- 
ploying cooly labour (for which they ought to get 
at least a good shaking), apply their own labour 
and that o( members of their families to im- 
proved culture which yiolding them not only rico 
enough for their wants but a surplus for sale, 
will in time convert them from labourers into 
capitalists and onablo them to hire coolies to 
BOpplement or supersede their own toil. Eut the 
idea of employing coolios, exoopt in the case of 
owners of large tracts of land, seems absurd. 
Surely the co-operative principle, already, we be- 
lieve, not unknown in ploughing and reaping, aud 
on which the very existence of irrigation works 
depends, could be extended to the operations of 
improved tillage and culture. If the results of 
improved tillage and culture should be the more 
rapid exhaustion of soil, then the question will 
arise, which is the better process to pursue : 
to give the land rest as fallow or to enable it 
to go on yielding crops by supplying it with manure? 
The subsidiary questions connected with manure 
are the kinds of fertilizers to be used and their 
respective costs and results. Of course cattle 
manure, in more or less quantity and of vary- 
ing quality, must be always available where cattle 
are employed to plough the rice lands. Many of 
the rice growers, also, use the slightly phosphatio 
and highly ammoniacal deposits in bat and swallow 
caves, while in some cases a good deal of bone 
dust is used. The Director of Public Instruc- 
tion will be able to supply information as 
to which of these, or what other substances 
he employed when he obtained the enorm- 
ous return of 306-fold from manured land. 
The quantity and cost per acre and the increased 
quantity and improved quality directly traceable 
to the use of manure (or different manures) are 
points on which information would be interesting 
and valuable. In the arid regions of Ceylon rice 
cannot be grown at all without means of artificial 
irrigation. But having at great cost provided the 
people with water, they must be taught that to use 
the fluid in excess is not only slothful on their 
part, but positively adverse to the best returns of crop 
in quantity and quality. The lesson which has to 
be learnt in most cases is that half the quantity 
of water generally used would give better results, if 
the land were ploughed and pulverized when dry 
and broadcast sowing superseded by the planting 
out of seedlings. A little coercion by civil servants 
and the higher native headmen might well be 
applied to the cultivators for their good. That, 
however, is not in Mr. Green's line, although tho 
success of the experiments now being carried out 
by his department depends largely on the aid 
rendered by Civilians, Mudaliyars, Arachchies and in- 
fluential inhabitants. One argument ought to have 
great weight with the people who grumble about 
heavy commutation. They have but to adopt im- 
proved culture to secure crops which will render the 
assessment of their fields a mere bagatelle, viewed 
as a percentage. If men like Messrs. De 
Soysa, Do Alwis and Fonseka would teach 
their humbler fellow natives lessons in the 
direction we have indicated, they would effect 
much more good than by giving voice to protests 
(very often unreasoning protests) against rates of 
taxation which are only heavy because of short 
crops, the result generally of lazy and unscientific 
culture. The Agricultural Instructors, backed by 
the other servants of Government, are teaching 
lessons which may yet effect wonderful changes in 
the condition of Ceylon, which at present does not 
grow more than two-thirds of the grain she con- 
sumes, being dependent on other countries mainly 
on continental India, for not only grain but live 
stock, dry lisb and other staple articles of food to 
a degree which, making all allowances, is most 
unsatisfactory. The day may come when the sur- 
plus grain of the now dosolate tank regions of 
Ceylon may justify theoxtension of the railway to the 
ancient capital of the island. But meantime much 
remains to be done in order largely to increase re- 
turns of cereal crops in centres of population and 
established scones of u culturo which appears to be 
suncoptiblo of oaormoud improvement, by tho adop- 
