( 3 ) 
Conductor will retire on 31st January, 1899, and it is intended to make some alterations in the garden 
and method of working. 
Difficulties were experienced with the water supply in the early part of the year, but it has 
been more satisfactory since. The garden has been kept weeded and clean, and the usual routine 
work carried on. 
The durian tree flowered well, and bore a number of moderately good fruit. Para rubber 
seeded well in .January. The new fodder plant, Poltjgala hutyracea, flowered well, but we have not 
enough of it as yet to try its value as fodder. The other new fodder, the Florida beggar weed, 
Desmodium tortuosum, is doing very well. 
Notes on Economic and Ornamental Plants. 
The following report deals with those plants which are important in cultivation in the Colony, 
or are xmdergoing trial in exjierimental plots in the different Botanic Gardens : — 
Tea. — The total export is once again larger than in any preceding year, being 119,769,071 lb. 
against 116,054,567 lb. last year. Exchange has been very steady at about 1«. Ad., and prices have 
been low, but with a tendency to rise later in the year. 
The extension of this cultivation has now practically ceased, but large areas planted during the 
last few years continue to come into bearing, so that for some time yet the total output will probably 
slowly increase. One of the most promising features of the past year has been the large increase 
in the export to countries ot]\er than the United Kingdom, America taking 2,180,188 lb., against 
830,873 lb. in 1897, and Russia 2,714,003 lb., against 439,349 lb., whilst the export to other countries 
has also increased very much, Australia now takes the large amount of 15,126,891 lb. The net result 
of this has been an actual decrease of the export to the United Kingdom by 2,796,226 lb., which should 
help to improve the prices obtained. 
The cultivation as a whole has been favoured by the absence of disease, but signs are not 
wanting that this immunity is gradually coming to an end, and that, like all other cultivated 
and wild plants, tea will have to contend with enemies both of insect and fungous nature, 
whose ravages will be rendered more easy and destructive than is the case with wild plants 
or the smaller crops by the great expanses of land which are covered with tea to the exclusion 
of other plants. During the past year unusual drought in the early months and a partial failure of 
the south-west monsoon have decreased the yield of tea considerably. A number of insect enemies 
have done damage (see Mr. Green's report below), and the " gray blight " fungus of Assam, which is 
one of the most troublesome pests with which the Assam planters have to deal, has been more 
injurious than usual. It has been in the Island for many years, and is chiefly prevalent in the 
Yakdessa, Kotmale, and Pussellawa districts, though cases of its occurrence have been noticed 
in many others. The disease seems to spread more readily at low elevations. Though at present 
comparatively unimportant, this may become a very serious pest if planters are not upon their guard 
against its first appearance, and do not take care to eradicate it as far as possible when noticed. 
Other fungi have at times been noticed upon the tea, but none very commonly. 
A few small estates of tea, &c., have of late been allowed to go out of cultivation, and 
this raises a question of much importance to the planting community. Unlike coffee, tea when 
abandoned does not die out, and consequently these estates form places in which both fungi 
and insects can, so to speak, develop a taste for tea which they may not have had before, 
and from which they may afterwards spread, to the great detriment of cultivated tea elsewhere. 
Wherever practicable, abandoned tea, &c., should be destroyed. 
The chemistry of tea cultivation and manufacture is now being made the subject of exhaustive 
study by Mr. M. Kelway Bamber, the expert engaged by the Planters' Association, and it is hoped 
that the methods of manufacture will be improved in consequence and become less haphazard than is 
at present the case. 
Coffee. — The export again fell largely, being only 13,313 cwt., as against 19,383 cwt, in 1897. 
and 86,009 cwt. in 1890. Native as well as plantation coffee has shared in this fall. 
A number of varieties of Arabian coffee have been received from the Java Botanic Gardens, 
and are now growing at Peradeniya. Plants of the hybrid (Liberian-Arabian) are also doing well, 
but of course it will be some considerable time before we can obtain any crop from them. 
(Jacau. — The export has again risen from 34,503 cwt. to 36,982. in spite of the ravages of the 
cacao canker, which has been a troublesome pest during the year. The life-history of this fiingus has 
been very thoroughly investigated during the year by Mr. J. B. Carruthers, the expert engaged by the 
Planters' Association. His observations and conclusions, with recommendations for treatment of the 
disease, have been published in p:imphlet form by the Association. The treatment of the pesr now 
rests with planters of cacao themselves, and there seems no reason to apprehend very serious danger 
to this cultivation, if proper paius be taken to attack the disease promptly wherever it may appear. 
As was predicted, the planting of the hardier Forastero \a,Yieties is extending, and the older varieties 
are being steadily repLaced by them. 
