36 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 1901. 
Then, in the tame state, can any other animals 
be found that are able to remember and under- 
stand so many different words of command as 
our working elephants ? Those who have seen 
elcp^a-nts at work in timber yards, at any rate 
in Burma, will call to mind how cleverly they 
atsck timber, althoneh the methotis of stacking may 
not be uniform. In rafting sunken timber, an 
elephant will readily, at command, hold a sinking log 
at the surface of the water until it is secured to 
some that are buoyant. lu such cases, all t^^at an 
elephant does cannot surely be put down to blind 
force of habit ! 
In the Andamans a few years ago one of the 
T + +,.or«TOaT7s ended at a steep "shoot,' leading 
foTnto aTidllcieek that was 'used for floating out 
?.a^mik The logs were laige and far too heavy to 
? u ^11 J hv men So an old elephant, Bisheswar 
Prasaf by i^rXwas'' employed J^Jaily, when the 
riasaa oy " j f^^^ the fellings, in turning 
timber wis brougM ^^^^^ ^^^.^ j.^^ 
tuh thi shoot, and then sending it off with a butt 
from his 
, , • J nftpn he did this without guidance 
from behind-^^Oft'^and he would do it accuratehj 
^„ time Another elephant sometimes helped to 
every , ^Sn^aes and would lift a beam to 
f^^ ?n„h-ef height, and hold it there until it was 
'Tto the up ght^- I ^1° 'hat this 
'?pXant knew that a bridge was being built so 
elephant knew ^ ,^^^1 y^^^ ^e appeared to 
"'^''L fna that his mahout wanted the beam lifted 
unaersmu ^ certain time, and he pa- 
tiently S"ed ''to and carried out orders without 
mistake There is no need to , 
stances of this kind, although there is no end 
the variety of them 
quote more in- 
" to 
These two alone, with what 
fhave written above, seem to me sufficient grounds 
Lr londuding that elephants, either wild or tame, 
ate by no mians " absolutely lacking in reasoning 
Forester. GTOK-BIN. 
COCONUT PLANTING IN THE TEA 
DISTRICTS AND INTERIOR 
GENERALLY. 
An enaviiry, as to the number of seed coco- 
v.,,t?suDDlied from a well-known Veyangoda 
r«ntSn to tea planters, has brought us 
Tie following interesting bit of information 
whif-h we venture to quote :— , , . 
'.1 have sold about 80,000 seed nuts and plants 
^n L the las six years, of which about 32,000 went 
Ke^Kelani Valle/. That ought to do, . at 70 to the 
a°i-e for over 450 acres; but I believe m order not 
interfere with the Tea too soon, and not to shade 
he bushes out of flush, the plants have been put 
out 30 to 40 feet apart-say 50 to the acre ; that would 
V nnt about 650 acres. I am surprised to hear 
fhat tWs estate had almost the sole honour of stocking 
that tnis e ^ ^g^^^.^. had to me after disap- 
pointme'nt with purchases elsewhere. Any way the 
moseny from here must cover a good part of the 
LTand Some nuts have, I think, gone as ar as 
inuradhapura ; while the founder of the settlement 
„ot a contribution of seed nuts from me for Lemesuria- 
lamal TC.next to the K.V., my largest customer 
^rPallegama which took over 20,000 seed nuts; but, 
Trom what I hear, very few plants have survived the 
droueht, neglect, porcupines and thieves in that ill- 
f veutuil The d her districts I have served are 
Kllu^!^'"">^-^-Aemy., Kandy, Matale, Gampola 
WMtteeama, Navi-alapitiy?., and even Bagama and 
Kalutari^n the low country; while several thousand 
nuts sent t" Ml'- 'T- in the Karunegala district means 
X faith of that veteran in change of seed, as he 
S;ht t'.ave got any quantity of nuts in his own 
diBtrict." 
Probably quite 1,000 acres of tea in the 
Kelani Valley have been covered by the 
32,000 nuts interspersed. 
» 
1889 TO 1901: CHANGES IN CEYLON. 
IN THE MOUTH OF THE KELANI 
VALLEY : 
FIRST VISIT TO A PLUMBAGO MINE : KEGALLA 
AND WESTERN DOLOSBAGE. 
(By an Old Planting Correspondent.) 
We had made up our minds to visit the 
TuMBAGF plumbago mine, and our party 
should have been six at least, but at the last 
moment dwindled down to two. Leaving 
early in the afternoon, we reached the Ke- 
galle and Yatiyantote road at the 56th mile- 
post, crossing the fording place in safety beside 
the old suspension bridge. There is a bazaar 
and many people both Sinhalese and Tamil 
hanging about here. 
The rart road is a new one and the three 
bridges between the 56th and 54th mile-posts 
are well constructed, with well-built stona 
abutments. The scenery is wild and in places 
picturesque. At the first bridge there is a 
waterfall above and below the roaxi ; then 
we came to many zigzags which might have 
been avoided by taking longer sights and 
a little extra blasting. At present the zigzag 
at the foot of one of the tea estates is rather 
unsightly ; however, the Government made 
it and it must therefore be right. 
We had the pleasure of meeting Messrs. 
Daniell and Lewis, both recently returned 
from South Africa. The former gentleman suc- 
ceeded Mr. Eraser of Waharaka, about 450 
acres of tea. After resting for half-an-hour 
at the bungalow, we proceeded to Glknalla 
estate, one of the Gang Warilt Group, 
making up about one thousand acres of tea 
of the Company with Havilland and Gang 
Warily itself. 
Glenalla estate is a compact little place of 
200 acres, awfully shut in by the hills around 
and sometimes very warm, about 92° in 
the shade. However, the tea looks well and 
so do the fruit trees and shrubs about the 
bungalow. Mr. Reeves is the present Superin- 
tendent. I doubt whether there is a thousand 
acres of tea requiring harder work than 
this group, in Ceylon. Dedugalla and St, 
Blane are very steep places ; but not so 
large an area. 
After early tea we started for the Tum- 
bage Plumbago Mine and rode from the 
Glenalla Factory through the Bazaar and 
past some villages, arriving at the settle- 
ment of the Tumbage Plumbago Mine 
about 9-30 a.m. The ascent to the pits was 
something awful, a gradient of one in five 
or one in three ob four, in places. 
THE TCTMBAGE PLUMBAGO MINES IN KEGALLE 
OR KELANI VALLEY. 
It was difficult to walk up these short 
cuts on account of the plumbago spilt on 
the paths making it very slippery and, by the 
time we reached the pit's mouth, we were 
very much out of breath. 
My companion, Mr, W., did not take long 
to decide about descending the first shaft 
