Oct. 1, iS99.] 
Supplement to the ^'■Tropical Agriculturist,'''' 
291 
10. The Mudaliyar or the Eatemahatmya must 
take a leading part in organising village Shows. 
11. Theoretical agriculture is at present taugl.t 
in every village Government School from the 
Fifth Standard upward.'. It is important, that 
some competent man should teach this suhject. 
In addition to his routine work such a man 
could arrange to give popular lectures in Agri- 
culture and allied Sciences. Such lectures should 
be carefully prepared so that they may be in- 
teresting, instructive, and entertaining to the 
villagers. 
12. A competent Agricultural Instructor should 
be appointed to take charge of the agricultural 
educatio.'i of each district, and he must work on 
the lines indicated above. His work should be 
constantly supervised l>y somebody from the 
Parent School. 
13. Every Mudaliyar and Ratemahatmeya 
should in future be required to pass an examination 
in Agricultural Science. This should be made one 
of the qualifications for appointment to such posts. 
When the Agricultural School is re-organised and a 
competent staff appointed such as will command 
the confidence of the public, there is no reason 
why some of the youuger Madaliyars and Eate- 
mahatmeyas should not be asked to go through 
a course of study in it and obtain diplomas. 
14. The village Agricultural Instructor should 
also be the village Veterinary Surgeon. He should 
teach the people how to tend cattle. They must 
be induced to grow fodder for their cows and 
attend to the sanitation of their dwellings. 
THE ANNATTO DYE OB^ COMMEECE. 
The oldest book on the agricultural products of 
tropical countries that I have come across is by 
George Eichardson Porter published in 1833. 
Cacao is there described as the chocolate tree of 
Mexico, but no mention whatever is made of 
annatto. Evidently this new product was then 
unknown to be of a commercial value. Its usj in 
the preparation of cacao for the table by the 
Spanish seems to have first brought it to the 
notice of the other nations of Europe and put 
into different other uses. This might possibly 
have been in the middle of the present century. 
But in Ceylon no attention seems to have been 
attracted by the plant, although it was found to 
be growing almost wild — if not cultivated as an 
ornamental tree or merely as a fence or hedge-vow 
— until the year 1880, when Eliot James' Indian 
Industries appeared in print, the coffee eiiterprize 
"was coming to an end, and plarters began to turn 
their attention to other products. It was the late 
Mr, George Wall and his friend the late Mr. A. G. 
K. Borrou that made the first attempt to include 
annatto amongst other new products cultivated on 
their partly-abandoned estates Aiikanda and 
Crystal Hill in Matale East; and the first crop 
from these trees was the first parcel of annatto 
seed e.xported from the i!^land when the price paid 
for West Indian seed in London was 5d. to6d. per 
lb. But the employment of Tamil labor, and the 
process in which this crop was harvested was so 
expensive — not to speak of freight and other 
incidental charges — it was found that in the long 
run annatto sent to Europe in seed would not pay. 
It is interesting in this connection to notice what 
the late Director cf the Royal Botanical Gardens 
wrote in his report for the year 1881. Under 
the heading annatto there is a long paragraph 
with this sentei>ce in his own words : — 
" Several gentlemen have made inquiries as to 
" the mode in which this is prepared for the 
"market; and as I could find no very definite 
" published account, I applied to the authorities 
" at the Eoyal Gardens, Kew, for information." 
The gentlemen referred to were evidently those 
who were disappointed at the result of tlieir 
e.xports to London ; and in future, instead of 
shipping the seed, intended to convert their crojis 
into the manufactured dye, by which means not 
oiily a saving of 20 % was expected to be m>\di' in 
the freight, bat al.>o keep pace with the otiier 
countries that sent the article to the market. 
The information obtained througli Dr. Trimen's 
efforts given in the report were however not of 
much value; and if anybody had succeeded in 
producing a marketable simple of the dye in the 
island subsequently, it was the late Mr. Borron. 
The writer wh -> was then his assistant need not 
dilate on the subject here. Their united exertions 
in this respect is well known to those who are 
interested in that line of business. It may 
however be remarked that before the development 
of anything like a paying business which required 
titi^e and more capital, it was very fortunate for 
the planters that Sinhalese labor should have at 
that time become very plentiful and cheap in the 
country. Hitherto it ivas^only the adult male 
that sought employment on estates as coolies, 
whilst his family remained in the village tending 
to their cattle and their small coffee gardens. 
The coffee le^if disease came on and destroyed 
these village gardens, and starvation stared in 
the face of those who depended on them for their 
support. Hence scores of Sinhalese women and 
children became only too happy if they could 
have got any work to do on the neighbouring 
estates, and were willing to do it for merely a 
day's meal. The first European capitalist who 
employed this cheap labor was Mr. Borron to 
harvest the crop of annatto on Crystal Hill in 
.July, 1884. Then followed a revolution in the 
annatto trade, and the writer had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing that (instead of worrying his head 
to di cover the secrets of manufacturing the 
dye) he was able to place the seed itself on board 
the ship at Colombo at a cost of 6 cents per lb. 
against 20-25 cents a lb. it had cost before. En- 
couraged by this success large areas of abandoned 
coffee lands were immediately brought under cul- 
tivation in the Matale district. Others followed 
suit, and in a couple of years later there sprang up 
flourishing fields of annatto in Wattagama, Kurune- 
gaJa, Ki:dagannawa, Gampola, and even far away 
in the Kelani Valley and Badulla districts. Even 
the villagers introduced it into their gardens and 
gave the Moorish boutique-keepers another com- 
modity to their i^etty trade. In fact, it was an 
A3sistant Government Agent who told his im- 
mediate superior that this new product would be 
the salvation of the natives, and got a monograph 
treating on its cultivation published in Sinhalese. 
There was one person, Dr, Trimen, who stood 
against these widespread extensions ; these were 
