196 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[Sept. 1, 1902. 
AN OLD CEYLON MAN 
to hear his old country well spoken of. Some 
days a£!0 I met a friend who was one of a special- 
train party sent up a few mouths ago to Kandy — 
chiefly 1 think through the enterprise of the 
well-known Manager of the Queen's Hotel. My 
friend was full of praise of the country and 
all that therein is. The railway, the view from 
the railway, the mountains in the distance, the 
smiling terraced paddy-fields below — these, we 
thought, had exhausted his vocabulary. But no ! 
Peradeniya was yet to come. My friend is a 
great amateur of all sorts of tropical botany, and 
it was surprising what an amount of detail he 
had been aljle to observe iri what must of necessity 
have been more or less of a hurried scamper. 
Mis observations were sharp and to the point; 
his praise unstinted ; his admiration unbounded. 
More was to come. But in few words : — ' Kandy,' 
he began — there was a pause — ' Kandy,' he 
began again and lay back in his chair: Kandy 
is the most beautiful place in the world!' And 
he lay back in his cliair, puffing huge rings of 
smoke, through which I suppose he revisited 
' the most beautiful place in the world,' for 
nothing more was to be got from him that night. 
The same gentleman on his return the other 
day had only four hours to spend in Colombo, 
and these he spent in looking for seed-nuts of the 
king coconut, but without avail. He wants them 
sorely— not for trade purposes; but merely to add to 
his orchard which is a most comprehensive one ; 
and if any lowcountry reader of these lines has 
a sympathetic heart and would like to profit 
BY EXCHANGE OF BRUITS, 
let him put a few seed-nuts of the king coconut 
variety into a gunny bag and send them to O. 
PutLfarcken, Lobo Pakam, O.K. Sumatra, and he 
will certainly get a good return in other Tropical 
fruits not common to Ceylon. Please, Mr Editor 
this is not an advertisement, but only an oppor- 
tunity for gentlemen gardening /or pastime only to 
exchange the 'fruits' of their experience. 
But anybody sending such things to Sumatra's 
East Coast (O.K., Oosc Kuat, East Coast) should 
always ship by North German Lloyds. By 
other lines your parcel may go to Bali, Lombok, 
Macassar, even Samoa, or somewhere. 'It 'im 
over the 'ead luith a 'ard 'eavy 'animer and make 
im 'owl 'orrible. It was not the Sosratie one 
this time, but another little beast in his image — 
just as I thought I had him by the neck, he 
disappeared into the ink-pot again. 
26th July, 1902. W. T. McK. 
» 
PRODUCE AND PLANTING. 
" CEYLON AND ITS PLANTING INDUSTRY," 
Mr J Ferguaoa writes: "The most notable fact revealed 
by the figures is the falliug-off in the area of tea, the 
total in cultivation on plantations being 4,000 acres less 
than a year ago, or, iacluding native gardens, a 
decrease of 6,000 acres, making a total of 386,000 in 
place of 392,000 acres. This mast be due to the aban- 
donment of non-paying fields and of some unprofitable 
gardens ; for it is accompanied by an exteosiun of the 
total extent in cultivation by 1,000 acres, although poor 
' coffee ' has gone down, being 3,200 acres less thaa a 
year ago. Cacao, on the other hand, is 500 acres 
more in planted extent ; cardamoms are greater in 
pki«a by XjSOO acres; cii\(:hoaa shows m iaoceaaa 
of 1,000 acres; and India-rubber f chiefly the 
Para or Hevea variety) of nearly 1,000 acres— 
which must, however, be rather under the 
actual area planted during the year, onr total extent 
planted being about 3,400 acres. In several minor 
products, too — camphor, nutmegs, crotons — there has 
been a good deal of planting, and still more have we 
had in the Kelani Valley and other low country es- 
tates, a planting out of coconut palms among the tea, 
just as Para rubber has been put in freely on the 
Kalutara tea estates. The check to tea, and the act 
that there are no clearings this year to plant ought to 
strengthen the hopes of those who believe in a future 
for our staple, so soon as consumption overtakes pro- 
for our staple, so soon aa consumption overtakes pro- 
duction. A year ago we anticipated that there would 
be 400,000 acres under tea at an early date in Ceylon ; 
whereas now we are in reality back to 386,000, with 
no immediate prospect of extension. In our ship- 
ments of tea from Ceylon this year we are so far 
5,000,C00 lb. behind the same date last year for the 
Uni ed Kicgdom, but shipments to Russia and 
America show an increase. Our coconut palm in* 
dustry— chiefly in native hands— covering 600,000 acres 
with a crop of one thousand millioa coconuts (for oil 
copra, fibre, desiccating kernels, &c.) — ib in a highly 
prosperous condition; while that in cinnamon bark 
and in plumbago mining continues fairly satisfactorj-. 
The Boer prisoners are making preparations against 
their return home— the first transport calling at 
Colombo shortly— and are likely to take a good deal of 
Ceylon tea with them."— 5^ and C Mail August 1. 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Bermuda Arrowroot.— A report on Bermuda 
recently issued by the Colonial Office states that 
the cultivation and manufacture of arrowroot, 
which were at one time important industries 
in that colony, have, from various causes, greatly 
declined in recent years. The arrowroot produced 
in the colony by the latest improved methods 
is of an excellent quality, and there is a good 
opening for investment of limited capital in 
this iadnstry.— Chemist and Druggist, July 26. 
EucAliYPTS are freely referred to in Ednie- 
Brown's volume on the " Forests of Western 
Australia"; but he often gives no scientific 
name. We quote two sentences :— 
TUART.— This is a handsome Eucalypt, and has 
a wonderfully bright and cheerful appearance in 
the forest. The bark is of a greyish- *vhite colour, 
and is smoothly crinkled and persistent through- 
out. The trees are always clean and bright- 
looking. In the young stage the species forms 
a very ornamental tree, and is planted as such 
in some of the other Colonies. It is straight, 
well-clothed, and has a beautiful bright-green 
leaf, and in this respect is not unlike the Karri. 
CRiMSON-FLOWERiNG GUM This is referred 
to here, not; because of its value as a timber 
tree but simply as a gorgeous and remarkable 
specimen of the forest flowering trees of Western 
Australia. The subject is a very handsome, 
branchy, umbrageous, small tree ; its foliage is 
dark-shining green with the leaves standing out 
more flat, and not edgeways, as is usual with 
the eucalyptus family generally. The specimens 
which I saw ranged from 20 to 40 feet in height, 
with stems averaging about a foot in diameter. 
The bark is rough and somewhat like the red 
gum ; the wood is a dark, blood-like colour. 
These trees had their branches sweeping down to 
the grouad amouj^slj the ferns, X 
