April i, 1882.I THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
825 
TROPICAL AGRICULTURE IN CEYLON : 
" LOWCOUNTRY PRODUCTS. " 
No. I. 
A " PEOPLE'S PARK " WANTED FOH COLOMBO — IIENAIt ATGODA 
GARDENS. 
" Kew Point," in Colombo, still preserves the me- 
mory of the first Botanic Gardens established during 
the British period in Ceylon, and, much as we ap- 
preciate the tasto with which the police quarters in 
Slave Island have been built and the grounds around 
them laid out, we yet could wish, for the sake of 
residents in the capital of the island, as well as that 
of the multiplied visitors wo may soon expect, that 
something more tlian the name and a few noble bvt ea 
had come down to us of this generation from the 
Ceylon namesake of the great and justly celebrated 
Kew Gardens. It is true tbat others, besides Prince 
Boltykoff, have characterized Colombo as one great 
botanical garden ; and no doubt numerous and varied 
drives over excellent roads lined with elegaut coconut 
palms, and through richest green foliage of bread- 
fruit, jak, cadju, bamboo, mango, cinnamon and 
other luxuriant trees and plants, brightened and 
rendered doubly cheerful by tbe primrose-coloured 
mtonia, the crimson "shoe flower," and in its 
season the truly grand "flamboyant tree" of Mada- 
gascar, uro " beautiful exceedingly." Still we cannot 
help wishing that here, in Colombo, we could shew 
in a special garden or park, such as visitors to Cal- 
cutta, Bombay and Madras and the other leading 
cities of India at once seek, collections in a con- 
veniently limited space of all the leading plants of 
the tropics, with the additional attraction of a select 
zoological family, ranging from the gigantic elephant 
to tbe mimina deer, from the eagle to tbe sun-bird, 
■and from tbe thirty-feet long alligator lown to the 
three-inch green lizard: not forgetting "the praying 
mantis" aud the stick and leaf insects. We trust 
that one speedy resiiR of the concentration here of 
practically the whole steam navigation of Ceylon and 
much of that of the Eastern world will be to free 
Colombo from the reproach of possessing nothiug more 
closely approaching a " People's Park" than the pretiy 
but, as yet, scantily furnished expmso in the Cin- 
namon Gardens, of which the really handsome Gre- 
gory Mil ium is tbo central object. Until recently, 
a visitor who wished to seo a systematic collec- 
tion of plants, indigenous and introduced, had per- 
force to travel to Peradcniya, seventy miles upcountry, 
Doubtless the traveller u mid find his reward in roam- 
ing amidst the contrasted culture and wilderness, 
bounded by a noble river, of the " Royal Botanical 
Gardens of Ceylon," with its medium climate. If a 
tight of sub-alpine forms and a view of somo of the 
grandest and most beautiful scenery in the world 
were desiderated, the journey had, as it still has, to 
be prolonged to Nuwara Eliya aud Hakgala, the latter 
looking out und d own ou Ihe forested mountains, the 
prairiu hills and the rice-terraced val'eye of Uva. 
With the attention paid to suoh " lowcountry 
products " in late years as Liberian coffee, 
cacao, cardamoms, caoutchouc trees, &c, came 
the demand for a ntnctly tropical branch of the (lard- 
186 
ens over which Dr. Thwaites so long presided and 
where Dr. Trimen now reigns. Economic rather than 
esthetic principles guiding the choice of situation, an 
exceptionally rich piece of forest ground was choseD, 
not at Colombo or near it, unfortunately, but within 
half an-hour's drive or walk from the Henaratgoda 
station, sixteen miles from Colombo, on the line to 
Kandy. Here can be seen a rich grove of indigenous 
forest, alive with clouds of the great frugiverous bat 
called in popular parlance "the flying-fox j" and tie 
visitor might ask the intelligent Sinhalese in charge 
whether he has observed any cases, such as undoubtedly 
occurred at Madras when trees the resort of those 
curious animals were denuded of leaves, of deaths 
amongst the big bats from sun-stroke ! But the visitor 
will need the time between 8 a. m., when his train ar- 
rives from Colombo, and 10, when the down train 
from Kandy passes Henaratgoda, to examine the 
varieties of Liberian, (so-called) " Arabian," West 
Indian and other varieties of coffee ; of cocoa from Car- 
raccas and Trinidad, with fruits ranging from deep 
red sprinkled with gold to palest white ; also card- 
amons, indiarubber trees of several species, and 
many other interesting plants. As the garden is 
bounded on one side by a swamp, some of our aquatic 
plants can be examined, and just outside the garden 
is one of the noblest objects in the vegetable kngdom, 
a talipot tree in flower. A good look at this tree 
iu its dying glory of a pyamid of primrose-coloured 
blossom surmounting a massive column and springing 
immediately from amidst leaves of deepest green and 
of vast proportions will well reward a visit to "The 
Henaratgoda Tropical Gardens." 
In travelling to Kandy by the railway lino and 
without the trouble of alighting, if only a good look- 
out is observed areas cultivated with " new products" 
may be noticed. Cinnamon does not, of cours •, come 
under this category, and strictly we cannot include 
the manioc or cassava plant, with which experiments 
have been tried since the days of Bennett, if not 
from an earlier period. If only the markets for cin- 
namon and tapioca could be extended, Ceylon could 
grow any quantity of both products. But the new pro- 
ducts to which we specially wish to attract the atten- 
tion of our traveller are the gigantic coffee of West Africa 
" Liberian coffee," and tho cacao (cocoa) of Central and 
South America and the West Indies. Both are rapidly, 
making for themselves new homes in Ceylon, and a gl.i nee 
can be obtained of very tine specimens of both ou 
" Liberia " estate, a few miles on the left hand go- 
ing up beyond tho station of Polgahawcla (the Coco- 
nut Tree Plain), where the trains meet, and which 
is 45 miles distant from Colombo. " Liberia" is and 
always will bo notable as tho scene of the first attempt 
ou an extensive scale to cultivato the coffee of Liberia 
in Ceylon. About twoyearsago Mr. W. Forbes Laurie 
the enterprisiug proprietor, organized a party, of which 
Dr. Trimen, then only just arrived, formed one, to 
visit this sploudid prop rty, and a full account of tho 
visit and of what was then observed on this splaudid 
and roost promising estate appeared in the Observer 
at tho time. On that occasion the party was numer- 
ous enough to induce the railway authorities to attach 
a passenger carriage to a goods train which dropped 
