I 
<A MONTHLY. C» 
Vol. XIV.] 
COLOMBO, AUGUST ist, 1894. 
No. 2. 
"PIONEERS OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE IN CEYLON." 
G. H, K. THWAITES, ESQ., F.R.S., F.L.S., PH.D., C.M.G., 
DIRECTOR OF THE CEYLON ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS, 1849-1880. 
E can scarcely speak of the 
late Dr. G. H. K. Thwaites, 
F.E.s., as a Pioneer of the 
Planting Industry in Ceylon, 
but, for over thirty years, 
he watched its development 
with much interest and was 
ever ready to render the planters all the aid in 
his power. In respect also of some new products, 
Dr. Thwaites did a good deal to encourage their 
introduction and extension. Indeed, new cul- 
tivations received all the stimulus and help he 
could render. Still we must always think of 
this veteran Director of our Botanical Gardens 
as a thorough savant and a very different type 
of humanity from the pushing "practical" 
pioneering Colonists who form the rest of our 
series. Dr. Thwaites' fame, of course, did not 
in any way rest on his " economic " work which 
he must have regarded as purely official and 
by no means specially congenial. He presided 
over the Peradeniya Gardens from December 
1849 to January 1880 or just over 30 years. 
When Dr. Thwaites arrived here at the end of 
December 1849' (Lord Torrington being still Go- 
vernor) things at Peradeniya Gardens were at a 
very low ebb. We cannot find that before this 
* II,. left Qrftvesend on 27th August, and, coming 
,,f course round the OapS, reivchod Ceylon on 2Gtli 
November. 
time it had ever been contemplated that the Gar» 
dens should bear any very direct relationship to- 
wards the European planters, though a good deal 
of Coffee seed was grown at Peradeniya and some 
plants sold to them ; though more was cured for 
Government. Vegetables for the Kandy market 
seem to have been the chief production, and Co- 
conuts and Cinnamon for Government. Dr. Gard- 
ner's short administration had somewhat improved 
this state of things, but after his death in Mar«k 
1849, expenditure had been greatly cut down and 
the Gardens brought to a condition of uselessness, 
Dr. Thwaites in his first Report, suggested ex- 
periments in new cultures, but like most new- 
comers to this country he seems to have thought 
that the cultivations of Central India and the 
Gangetic plain could be successfully carried on in 
our quite different insular climate. Time was 
consequently thrown away over Indigo, Jute, 
Cotton, Tobacco, Cochineal, &c, and it was not 
till after a few years that these were abandoned 
for more suitable products such as Vanilla — which 
Dr. Thwaites always strongly urged — China Grass, 
Manilla Hemp and other Fibres, as well as the 
resuscitation of the old cultivations of Nutmegs 
and Cloves and Cacao. 
But at the time we speak of — in the early 
"titties" — no one seems to have paid much at- 
tention to anything but Coffeee growing, and 
Dr. Thwaites met with little encouragement in 
