Feb. r. 1895.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
519 
We said in the course of a Ions' address ; — 
"Buy in the cheapest, sell in the dearest market" 
settles the question, and it must be noted that the 
great import of Indian rice has taken place pari 
passu, with the advance in planting. Thus, forty- 
five years ago, when coffee planting had only 
begun, less than half a million bushels of rice 
imports into Ceylon sufficed ; in 1877, nearly seven 
million bushels "were required, but with the check 
to coffee (from the dire fungus disease on the 
coffee leaf), this has now fallen to five million 
bushels. No doubt there are Sinhalese and Tamils 
in Ceylon who, if they devoted time and energies 
which at present are far from being fully utilised, 
to rice culture, might furnish a larger local supply; 
but when the emulative spirit and education come 
to call out the dormant industry of the sections 
of people referred to, query, whether they may not 
find palms and tea more profitable to cultivate, 
even if they have to buy their rice India is likely, 
as time rolls on, to beat America and Australia 
in the supply of cheap wheat ; and should the export 
duty on her rice be taken off, India is certain to 
give Ceylon, Mauritius, and even the West Indies, 
cheaper rice than they oan raise, and this fact 
would, I am sure, be still more fully lealised if 
the so-called "food taxes" in Ceylon (the Customs 
duty on imports and the rent on rice fields) were 
both abolished. Inasmuch as this (grain) is the 
only branch of agrioulture in Ceylon on which 
a direct revenue levy (rent) is made, civil 
servants, I sometimes think, are apt to over- 
estimate its importance, just as they are obliged 
to give it so much more of their personal at- 
tention. But I hope that both the Government 
and their officers will realise the vast advantages 
Ceylon has as a palm, fruit, tea leaf, bark and fibre 
producing country — the land of spices and tropical 
products par excellence — and will do all in their power 
to encourage the people in these profitable industries, 
while by no means discouraging the rice cultivation 
to which they are already attached. As regards the 
occupied, populous districts of Ceylon — the Western, 
Central, and Southern provinces (Mr. Ferguson here 
illustrated his remarks on a large map of Ceylon on 
the wall), in which 2,000,000 out of 2,800,000 of people 
are found, and over which there is a well-distributed 
and generally abundant rainfall, we have conditions 
of climate, soil, and transport which point to plant- 
ing and garden cultivation as more suitable and profi- 
table than rice or other cereal cultivation.** Nor can 
it be said that the native Sinhalese and Tamils, among 
whom education is rapidly spreading, have shown any 
lack of emulation in competing with, or copying the 
example of, the European planters. The fact that, 
before the disease-fungus appeared, the natives had 
increased their export of " native coffee" from 10,000 
to 220,000 cwt. of coffee in a generation, shows this. 
The greatly-increased export of cinnamon bark, and of 
plumbago, almost entirely from native hands, offers 
other proofs ; but still more striking is the enormously 
developed cultivation of palm trees — more especially of 
the coconut, palmyra, areca, kitool palms — within the 
past twenty to thirty years. So great is this industry 
now that it covers a far larger area than rice culture, 
and if we add in other edible fruits, we get 860,000 
acres planted with palms and fruit trees, against 
810,000 acres cultivated annually with rice and all 
othor cereals. I fear the Government and Civil servants 
of Ceylon do not altogether realise that their palm 
and fruit tree industry is at least of as much importance 
to the natives of Ceylon as their rice culture. Not 
only does the former supply an export trade worth 
fully 800,000? a year, but the fruits enter very largely 
into the food of the people ; so that while grain is 
the staple, yet, if rice failed altogether, there are pro- 
bably large districts in Ceylon in which the natives 
with their coconut, palmyra and fruit trees, could ward 
off famine efl mally. Tennent mentions a Kandian 
family in Aiubeganma, who supported themselves by 
the produce of one kitooll {Qwy,ota urens) tree; and 
tho ownership of ten coco-palms and two jak trees 
have been countod to render a Sinhalese man in- 
dependent. A crow of English sailors wrecked on a 
South Pacific island two years ago lived for some 
months on nothing but coco-nuts and fish, and gained 
in weight. * * * Nor are our Sinhalese and Tamils 
backward to copy the European planters in refer- 
ence to the new products of late years being in- 
troduced into Ceylon. They have gone in for cinc- 
hona planting — the complaint being that thev too 
often steal the nursery plants of the colonists — 
(laughter) — for cacao and even for rubber trees ; but 
especially are the Sinhalese likely to become ex- 
tensive growers of the tea plant, which flourishes 
so well from sea level to 0,000 feet high all over the 
south west, and centre of Ceylon, that the wonder 
to us is that we did not all begin tea growing 20 or 
30 years earlier, a leaf crop in our Ceylon climate 
being so much safer and more abundant than one 
of fruit, such aa coffee. 
Tea-growing by natives is not regarded with fa- 
vour by the owners of big plantations in proxi- 
mity ; but it must go on and become a big in- 
dustry. We are just waiting returns from the Gam- 
pola ami Nawalapitiya districts which will show a 
very considerable area under tea in small gardens 
on native account. In some instance paddy-fields 
have been converted into tea-gardens and splendid 
tea-producing fields such Hat alluvial land often 
makes. Then we learn that in the Hanwella 
as in the Moratuwa, Kalutara, Galle and Matara 
districts, tea-growing by natives is rapidly ex- 
tending. In the Hewagam Korale, the owners 
of small gardens make the tea by hand rolling, 
— rolling on tables with their hands — and sell 
the product to the villagers at 25 cents a lb. 
Now, there is plenty of scope for an extension 
of this industry. \\ e shall hail the day when 
our three million of natives are drinking not as 
many, but ten or even fifteen million lb. of tea 
— all of their own growth and make — per annum. 
It would be an immense benefit to the health 
of the people if they followed Chinese example 
and kept the ' chatty ' or ' teapot ' ready to boil 
water all day, adding the tea leaves for their 
favourite infusion. The Indian Tea Planters 
have formed an Association to promote the 
drinking of tea among the natives ; and the 
Governments of Bengal and the North-West 
Provinces have taken practical steps towards 
the same end. Here is now Professor Hart de- 
monstrating that not only cholera but malarial 
fever in many forms, is probably due to drinking 
bad water ; and he is reviving the crusade in favour 
of boiling all water before being drnnk. How 
much better as a Madras contemporary has it 
to add tea to the boiling water and drink a 
refreshing infusion. 
We have wandered a good way from the 
School ; but all we have written has a direct 
bearing on the future of Native Agriculture, and 
on the several interesting addresses given re- 
cently by His Excellency, the Acting Director of 
Public Instruction and Mr. Dornhorst ; while Mr. 
A. F. Broun must be as interested in the spread of 
palm aiid fruit-tree gardens as in arboriculture. 
PICE PACKETS OF TEA. 
A contemporary's correspondent supports Mr. 
Ernest Hart very eagerly in the boiled water cru- 
sade [which we have preached in Ceylon ever since 
we viiited China in 1884. — Ed. T.A.] but he thiuKs 
that the Native needs something more than mere 
preaching to induce him to take the seemingly use- 
less trouble of cooking his cold drinks. The corres- 
pondent has a "happy thought" on the subject, 
which he offers to any one who will take it up. His 
suggestion is that the Post Offices and thaiias that 
sell pice packets of quinine should be turned iuto 
Kiocer's shops as well as dispensaries, and made 
to sell pice packet of tea. The drinking of 
tea necessitates boiled waters and a serious 
difficulty in the way of Mr. Hart's campaign 
seems in a great measure solved. Our contempor- 
