May i, 1889.] TH£ TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
735 
Ceylon Handbook and Directory," specially re- 
lating to the tropical cultures of Ceylon. It affords 
much authentic information in a handy and 
accessible form, and is a valuable summary of 
the results attained in the cultivation of most 
economic plants suited to a tropical country. 
Ceylon itself is a singularly interesting island. It 
is usually described as the largest, most populous, 
and most important of the Crown Colonies of 
Great Britain. It has in recent years become the 
seat of planting industries which have in one or 
two instances almost monopolized the markets of 
the world. It is six times the size of Jamaica, 
and about five-sixths the size of Ireland. Of its 
sixteen million acres, at present only about three 
millions are under cultivation, and these support 
a population of exactly the same number. The 
value of the imports and exports amounts to about 
ten millions sterling. The total number of European 
residents in Ceylon is under five thousand, while 
the mixed or coloured population called Eurasians 
or Burghers amounted to about nineteen thousand. 
The bulk of the population, amounting to nearly 
two million souls, is composed of Sinhalese — a re- 
markably tractable and inoffensive people— while 
the remainder is made up of Tamils, Moormen, 
Malays, and Veddhas. The latter are an aboriginal 
race, comparatively few in number, inhabiting the 
forests of the north-east. 
Although the number of the Sinhalese is re- 
latively so large, they contribute very little to the 
labour supply of the European plantations. Plan- 
tation labour is furnished by Tamil coolies from 
Southern India. According to a report published 
by the Government of Madras, out of a population 
of thirty-five millions of human beings in that 
Presidency there are sixteen millions whose annual 
earnings do not average more than £3 12s, or 
a little over 2|d per day. Thus it is that the 
plantations of Ceylon, paying about 6d or 9d 
per day, are abundantly supplied with cheap free 
labour. 
The purely European enterprises consist of tea, 
coffee— both Arabian and Liberian— cacao, carda- 
moms, rubber, annatto, vanilla, pepper, _ fibres, 
nutmeg, cloves, dyeplants. In these is invested 
English oapital to the amount of about eight 
millions sterling. The native industries are 
associated with the cultivation of the coco- 
nut palm— yielding oil, coir, and oopra— rice, 
cinnamon, palmyra palm, kitul or jaggery palm, 
areoa palm, citronella and lemon grass, tobacco, 
cotton, sugar- cane, dry grains such as kollu, millet, 
kurakkan, maize, and numerous vegetables and 
fruits. It is estimated that there are nearly fifty 
million cocoa-nut palms in Ceylon, and the yearly 
yield cannot be less than about 500 million nuts. 
Next to the cocoa-nut palm, the palmyra palm 
(Borassua flabelliformis) is regarded as one of the 
richest plants known. According to a Tamil proverb 
" It lives for a lac of years after planting, and 
la9ts for a lac of years when felled." Jaggery 
sugar is made from the sap, and in the dry, arid 
regions of the north-east of Ceylon more than 
seventy million nuts are annually produced. The 
young sprouting nuts are used as a vegetable. The 
kitul (Oaryola mem) is another sugar-palm, which, 
in addition, yields a coarse black fibre used in 
broom-making. Cinnamon is essentially a native 
industry. The island has been famous for this spice 
" from the dawn of historical records." There is 
a Sinhalese caste of cinnamon peelers, and these, 
the ChUiyas, hold practically a monopoly in 
preparing the bark for the market. The dry grain 
cultivation is associated with that baneful vhena 
practice of recklessly cutting down and burning 
virgin forests — now, we aro glad to notice, in 
course of being kept within proper bounds. The 
natives of Ceylon have imitated the Europeans in 
many industries, but by far the greater number are 
content to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, 
and cultivate only such plants as cocoa-nuts, rice, 
fruits, and vegetables, necessary to supply their 
daily wants. 
For many years the chief European industry was 
that of coffee. From 1825, when Sir Edward 
Barnes started the first upland coffee plantation near 
Kandy, to 1875, when Ceylon exported nearly a 
million hundredweights, "coffee was king." In 
1869, a microscopic fungus (Hemileia vastatrix) made 
its appearance on the leaves of the coffee-plant. 
This spread with such rapidity, and with such 
destructive effect, that within a few years the 
Ceylon coffee plantations were doomed. The disease 
extended also to Southern India, to Sumatra, and 
Java ; it invaded Mauritius, Madagascar, and 
Natal, and reached even the young and pro- 
mising plantations of Fiji. After twenty years' 
experience of this pest, the Ceylon coffee 
plantations have so dwindled that the present 
exports are only one-tenth of what they once were. 
Fortunately the decline of coffee was accompanied 
by the extension of cultivation of cinchona, carda- 
moms, cacao, and tea. Ceylon cinchona has been 
produced in such quantities that the markets have 
been completely glutted. In consequence the price 
of bark has fallen so low that the cultivation is 
unremunerative. The attention of Ceylon planters 
is now being concentrated, with their accustomed 
energy, on the cultivation of tea. Coffee, cin- 
chona, and everything not immediately remune- 
rative are being uprooted to give place to the new 
staple. Although the industry is not more than 
ten or twelve years old, Ceylon tea is already 
being exported to the value of £600,000. Tea 
therefore bids fair to take the place of coffee, and 
thus the cloud which has overshadowed the pros- 
perity of the island during the last few years is 
gradually passing away. Ceylon cacao is excellent, 
but the industry is small and apparently stationary. 
It is doubtful whether the island possesses any 
really large extent of land suitable for the growths 
of the cacao-plant. The rubber industry in Ceylon, 
as elsewhere, is mysteriously unproductive, while 
the cultivation of vanilla, pepper, and fibres, is 
only in the experimental stage. The total areas 
under the various cultivations at present are : tea, 
183,000 aores; coffee (Arabian), 77,000 acres; 
coffee (Liberian), 916 acres ; cinchona, 36,000,000 
trees over two years old ; cacao, 12,000 acres ; 
cardamoms, 5,000 acres ; rubber-trees, 386 acres ; 
croton, castor-oil, aloes, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, 
cloves, plantains, and citronella grass, 7,400 
acres ; gum-trees, fruit-trees, sapan, sapu, cocoa-nuts, 
areca-nuts, nutmegs, 4,600 acres. 
Such are a few of the gleanings from this useful 
account of the planting and agricultural industries 
of Ceylon. Mr, Ferguson is favourably known as a 
successful journalist, and as the author or joint- 
author of numerous publications connected with 
the island in which he has spent the greater part 
of his life. Indeed, it would not be too much 
to isay that Mr. Ferguson and his uncle have 
contributed by their writings in no small degree 
to promote the various industries upon which the 
prosperity of Ceylon depends. To those whose 
interest or whose business is connected with tropical 
cultures this summary will prove most useful. It 
covers a wide field, but, so far as Ceylon is concerned 
it contains information available in no other way. 
The historical and statistical facts, no less than 
the points respecting the treatment of tropical 
plants, are collected from trustworthy sources, and 
