N|>v. i, i8cr4.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
337 
ORANGES GALORE— AND FRUIT CULTURE 
GENERALLY IN CEYLON. 
We have long been aware of orange trees growing 
and producing fruit exceedingly well in oertain of our 
planting diatriots— more especially in the compara- 
tively dry Uva divisions, Iu Lower Hewaheta, too, in 
the olden days we have seen some splendid trees 
covered with golden fruit. But certainly never in 
the history of the island have we had such a 
revelation of luxurianoe as that made by a Ban- 
gala planter elsewhere, — " 25,000 mandarin oranges 
from two trees in one year!" The statement 
sounds incredible, and were it not attested to us by 
the name of a well-known planter, we should say 
there had been exaggeration. But it is absolute 
fact and it ought to set a good many practical 
men a-thinkiog that in certain of our hiil 
districts, a very limited grove of orange trees 
might prove as reliable a source of income as a 
very much bigger acreage of coconuts. We have 
related how, in Florida, we found an ex-Udapus- 
sellawa coffee planter, content with his ten acres 
of oranges, assured that if they turned out well, 
they ought to give him a dear inoome of from 
£400 rising to £800 a year. Ten aores of 
the Rai'gila "mandarins" ought to beat this 
by a iong way, even although we era far distant 
from such a market as Florida commands — in the 
season when foreign oranges are out of it— in New 
York and other big towns — with cheap transport 
from the groves to the Amerioan Covent Garden. 
Still, it is impossible to doubt that there is a 
very considerable market in Ceylon, including the 
port of Colombo, for good fru t and more especi- 
ally oranges. Wo recall a month last year when, 
for invalids, no oranges worthy of the name, oould 
be puroboaod under 25 cents each in Colombo. 
See what " North of Kandy" in a letter today 
Bays about fruit as well as vegetables. Or- 
anges are getting a very high reputation among the 
faculty ; and indeed we can reoa 1 ! the saying of 
worthy ard olever Dr. Dickman of Kandy, twenty 
years ago, in bemoaning the quantity of me- 
dioiue he was oalled on by his planting pa- 
tients and others to presoribe : — " They will have 
" it you know ; nothing but a big bottle and a 
"nauseous draft will assure them they get valtn 
" from their doctor ; now if I myself feel ' seedy,' I 
" take an orange ; if quite out of corts, I take 
" two ; and if very bad three or four — with the 
" best effeot possible 1" There cm be no doubt of 
the wholeBomenes3 of the fruit, or of the faot 
that every man, woman and child in the Colony 
might probably, with great advantage to health, 
cousuore one hundrod times the number of 
oranges thoy now do in the jeir. So, surely, 
we ajso safe in urging an extension of 
orarjga cultivation, among both Europeans 
and Ccylonese. There are other fruits, too, 
that might be far more freely planted ; for 
instance, peaches and tigs, in the Uva districts 
espeoiulljf. Asking not iong ago an experienced 
plantef what a waste piece of land amidst the 
Happy Valley patanas oould be made to grow, — 
"Why," he said, "planted up with rig trees, 
that three aores would give tons of fruit for 
the supply of Nuwara Eliya, Nawalapitiya, Gam- 
polai ^£andy and Colombo markets " Why then is 
there not far more done in fruit culture within the 
Principality ? Are there none of our enterprii icg 
trained young planters ("oreeperu " even of some 
local i%perienoe) who can oommand a little oapital 
and gi to work to form 10 or 20 acre groves for 
prarjge's, peaohes and rigs ? 
,v3 
THE BEGINNINGS OF COCONUT PLANTING 
IN CEYLON. 
HOW THE PALM GOT TO CEYLON. 
The coconut pslm is by no mean3 indigenous to 
Ceylon. Though the most striking and ubiquitous 
of all plants over a great part of the lowcountry, 
the palm is nowhere found that its planting oannot 
be aooounted for ; and unlike the cinnamon bush, 
or rather tree, it oan nowhere ba discovered in 
a wild state. Da Candolle, the greatest authority 
oa the subject, places the original habitat of the 
coconut palm in the Eastern Arohipelago some- 
where in the neighbourhood of Sumatra and Java, 
and surmises that nuts floated thenoe both East 
and West. Eastwards to the islands of the Paoifia 
and the coast of Central Amerioa, and Westward 
to Ceylon and the East Coast of Africa. Tha 
native tradition that locates the earliest speoimen 
or grove of this palm in the neighbourhood 
of Weligama, on our Southern Coast, is in 
strict accordance with what might be expeoted 
under De Candolle'a theory, The tradition ia 
that a king of Ceylon was a leper, or aftlioted 
with some skin disease, and that he~(Kii3taRaja) was 
oured by sea-bathing and the milk of the oooonut, 
or the use of the expressed oil. Curiously enough 
the Mahawansa (the ancieut Sinhalese history of 
Ceylon) doe3 not contain nearly so many references 
to the coconut as it does to the palmyra palm, 
although the latter now, does not cover nearly the area 
occupied by coconut. One shrtwd surmise why tha 
Mahawansa has so little to say about the coconut, 
hazarded by Mr, H. Nevill, is that the praotica 
of toddy-drawing after a time, and its distillation 
into spirit, would prejudice the priestly historians 
against the palm and its cultivation. Be this as 
it may, Mr, Nevill notices that the Mahavansct, 
(XLII, chapter) reoords how King Aggrabodhi I. 
about a.d, 589 oaused "a ooconut plantition of 
three yojanas (about 36 English miles) in extent" to 
be formed, probably between Dondra and Weligama, 
and so it is surmised that his statue was cut out 
of the rock near the Weligama Vihara as a 
memorial of the King who introduced coconut 
planting into Ceylon ! 
We are indebted for the next link in the ohaih 
of looal coconut planting to the intelligent Atapattu 
MuJaliyar of the Colombo Kaohcheri. Looking 
over his English copy of the Mahavansa, Mudaliyar 
Solomon Seneviratne came on the passage whera 
it is related that the Minister of Prakarama 
Bahu the Great formed a cojouut plantation between 
Bentota and Kalutara, one yojana or 12 English 
mihs in width. The original passage bearing on 
the planting is worth transcribing as follows : 
Thence this groit minister proceeded fo the port 
of Bhimatittha. And there he built a bridge, eighty, 
six cubits' span, at the mouth of the Kalanadi* 
river ; oae of about oue hundred yatthis' f span at 
the village Kadnl^ena ; % one of loity yattbis' span 
over the Salaggami iiver,§ a;id one of fifty cubits' span 
over the Salop idapa river. [| Thus oid he build theea 
and other bridges at divers places where it wsa 
difficult to cr^s over; and likewise also he made 
numerous gardens and halls for preaching and the 
like, and did even giro away much alms and hold 
feaets (in conueotion tlurewiU)). 
Afterwards this great minister of the king formed 
» large coconut garden, full of fruit and fine shado, 
and gavo it the famous name of Parakkama B»hu ; 
* The Black river, Kalir-ganga, 
t A yatrtji is oqual to seven cubits of two spans 
to the oubit. r 
1 Kebelsen, Kehel-lenuva P 
S Salgaum-gnu^u. 
[I ISalruk. 
