THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October x, 1888. 
Vgiorous in vegetation though not yet bearing and 
contrasting well with the arnotto which is not at 
all affected — unless it be beneficially — by thsir shade. 
Mr. Borron returns in the Directory, we find : — 
50 acres cacao, 30 acres arecanut, and 160 acres 
arnotto on Crystal Hill ; but he is extending both 
arecas and arnotto in new fields. Some of his 
native neighbours are copying his example, and 
in Laggala there are also several clearings of 
arnotto, the crop having an advantage in its small 
bulk for transport over long distance. As regards 
arecas, the only fear in the neighbourhood of 
Matale is of the rainfall not being sufficient, the 
home par excellence of the areca in Ceylon being 
the wet south-western slopes of the hills in the 
Kegalla and Awisawella districts. But very pro- 
bably careful cultivation may more than atone for 
any such deficiency. 
Along the Matale-Battota road there is every sign 
of comparative comfort if not prosperity among 
the natives. The rioe-fields on the river valley from 
Elkaduwa downwards and away towards North 
Matale are specially luxuriant and after leaving 
Eattota village — where the school located in the 
old Baptist Mission Chapel is a prominent 
object — I have pointed to me the location of 
the 700 acres of land applied for by the Tobacco 
Syndicate, undulating chena not far from the 
river, at present waste and likely to remain on 
account of drought so far as tea is concerned, 
but very possibly well fitted for tobacco. However, 
there is no sign of this block being taken up this 
year and perhaps Mr. Ingleton's principals are satis- 
fied for the present with the rich fields planted 
on their account in the Kurunegala district. 
I ought to have referred in passing to the Su- 
duganga property which like so many old places 
is, under tea, taking a new lease of life. Here 
I first spent an evening twenty years ago with Mr. 
Peter Moir when he was hard at work renovating 
a property which in its day, had borne some of 
the heaviest coffee crops known in the island. 
One of the biggest was, however, almost c ompletely 
ruined through inability to overtake its prepara- 
tion and despatoh during persistently wet weather, 
all the cherry ripening at once. So grievous and 
absolute was the loss that the young planter then 
in charge — this must have been early in the 
" fifties," — began burying the rotting beans in 
holes in the estate, the coolies being hard at work in 
this fashion when the proprietor turned up : tableau ! 
Finally, a good deal of the crop when it reached 
London had to be thrown into the Thames as unfit 
for food, — so that the biggest crop Suduganga 
ever gave left the proprietors less profit than the suc- 
ceeding very short one. Next, coming into Mr. 
Borron's hands, we all remember his young clearing 
with 20 to 25 cwt. of coffee per acre on the trees, 
and how visitors from the higher districts flocked 
to see the sight, among the rest Mr. Phipson 
from Maskeliya who negotiated the purchase for 
the present proprietors at what was deemed a 
fancy price, but which in reality did not leave 
much over to the seller. Higher up on our route, 
I might fix on Opalgalla as the crack estate of the 
Northern division of Matale East in the days of 
old. Here I saw that model Manager, Mr. R. J. 
Chippindall, when the model estate was in its 
prime in '69 — a cartroad made especially for its 
use (and that of the Gammadua group) from Eattota, 
while a plantation better supplied with every faci- 
lity for economising labour, expediting work, 
saving soil and applying manure did not exist in 
Ceylon. Mr. George Wall gave much of his at- 
tention to Matale East, and probably no one outside 
the district mado so many weary journeys ove 
and aloDg both sides of this steop Laggala rang 
in years long gone bye as this well-known leader 
among merchants and planter. On Opalgalla hill 
the foundation of a small fort can be traced, the 
construction of which vague tradition as usual ascribes 
to "Yakkas," the alleged architects of so many 
ruins in Ceylon. But my route lay in the other direc- 
tion by bridlepath up the steep ascent to Dangkande 
and Laggala, a route which has been used by the 
Sinhalese as the means of communication between 
the two sides of the country from a date, 1 sup- 
pose, long anterior to the advent of planters in 
the country and which I fancy has scarcely if at 
all been improved since it was passed over by 
Major Forbes perhaps sixty years ago. The 
wonder is that so little life has been lost on these 
Matale East breakneck, rocky paths and dangerous 
fords. One young friend, Willie Allen, just as he 
had attained to the top of his ambition as a 
pucka full-blown Manager, lost his life riding home 
from Matale in crossing a swollen stream — swept 
from his horse and drowned — but that was farther 
to the west, on the river below Elgalla. The 
Dangkande path, however, is not without its 
dangers as Major Forbes found in one of his 
official tours when he records : — 
" Nearly clear of the forests of Dankande, and 
already looking down on the Matale valley, we 
were congratulating ourselves that the horses had 
passed without accident : when we came to a narrow 
platform, supported along the face of a sloping 
rock, my pony passed without hesitation; but, in 
the middle, Mr. S 's horse, feeling the spars 
bending, got frightened, started, and fell. Hearing 
the clattering of his hoofs as he rolled over and 
over, we expected to find the animal killed or 
disabled ; but, on clearing a path obliquely down 
to the bottom of the rock, we perceived the horse 
quietly grazing and perfectly unhurt ; so effectually 
had the thick brushwood, malted with creeping- 
plants, which spread over the lower part of the rock, 
broken the force of his rolling fall." 
The blessing that 10 or 15 miles of cart road 
would confer on the Laggala district cannot be 
overestimated ; and of this we shall have numerous 
illustrations afforded as we pass on. 
CEYLON UPCOUNTEY PLANTING EEPOET. 
" Ferguson's ceylon handbook and directory" : the 
beginning, middle and end of the big volume. 
3rd September 1888. 
There are some few things which it is impossible 
to conceive our colony without, and Ferguson's Hand- 
book and Directory is especially one of such. Before 
it is issued, it is one of the mild excitements of 
Ceylon life looking forward to its appearance, and 
when after many delays it has reached the hands 
of its subscribers, it is as good as a gossip with the 
best-informed men in the country as to " who is 
who" and "what is what " just to go lazily through 
its pages. But the book is a very great deal more 
than this ; for, as a standard work of reference in 
regard to all things related or relating to Ceylon, 
where can you find its equal ? If a man is in a fix 
about anything ; if for instance he wants to know 
the amount of rupees which the Inspector-General 
of Police absorbs in return for those services, 
and that personal knowledge of everybody so 
pathetically referred to at the indignation meet- 
iny by his ex-inspector ; if he wants the 
height of Mutton-Button, the amount of the arrack 
and toddy farms, the strength of the Salvation 
Army in the island, or ten thousand and ten as 
diversified things, where can his wants be better 
supplied, or his enquiries more fully satisfied, 
than in the Handbook and Directory ? 
