January i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
4S7 
THE EEAL POSITION OF THE NATIVE 
CULTIVATOE AND THE MEANS 
WHEREBY HE CAN IMPROVE IT. 
( Colli Dtuiiicated.) 
The utterances of His Exoellenoy the Governor, 
and the other speakers who addressed the meeting 
on Saturday evening (Nov. 28th) at the School of Agri- 
culture, will show to the Ceylonese the deep interest 
taken by them in the future welfare of the nation as 
Bgrioulturist, or cultivators of the soil. There is 
no blinking at the fact that the Ceylon of today 
is to the Sinhalese cultivator, the Ceylon of 70 years 
ago. For while commerce has increased and the 
planting entorprize of the British capitalist has 
progressed with leaps and bounds, the Sinhalese 
agrioultarist has remained the veritable Rip Van 
Winkle of the country, to find himself sleeping 
over decades of progress, which came not to him in 
the land of his birth. His family has increased in 
numbers, but the area of his cultivation has re- 
mained much the same in extent. Lands available 
for asweddum'Zing is of limited extent in the po- 
pulated villages, and the work itself involves much 
labour and expense which he cannot readily afford : 
and the consequence is that the limits of subsistance 
have been pressed against for some time past now, 
in different parts of the island in a manner that 
admits of no further doubt or speculation as to the 
cause of the widespread distress and despondency 
that prevails in the country. The next class 
that threatens to overun the country without 
finding adequate employment to maintain them- 
selves, is from among the so-called educated 
section of the community. Schools, both Govern- 
ment and private, swarm with children of educated 
and uneducated Sinhalese parents, and the numbers 
keep increasing with the growing desire for know- 
ledge as a means whereby to attain an end. The 
chief end being— after making every allowance for 
valuing knowledgejfor its own sake — the purchase 
of a meal. But out of the thousand who by reason 
of their scholastic and literary attainments at 
school and college are found knocking at the doors 
of Government offices for the privilege of filling a 
vacancy at R20 a month in exchange for services 
that are worth RlOO in other countries, only the 
smallest percentage may hope to enter. So at the 
merchants oflSoeB, so also at the lawyers offices. 
What is to become of the rest of this educated 
class who from their very training are led to live 
a life rather of hope and expectancy, than of 
usefulness in the field of manual labours with their 
brethrens, till distress overtakes. The butler or the 
cook who earns his K?0 is better off by far than 
the educated clerk at R20 a month with his in- 
creased artificial wants and cultivated tastes; and dis- 
appointment and despair, poverty and its concomit- 
ants overtake him, and hold him with firmer grip 
than the less educated, less favored play-fellow of his 
childhood from an agricultural population large 
numbers have passed on to a wage earning section 
— seeking such services, menial and laborious, as 
were open to them to enter ; while the ranks of the 
artificers and tradesman have been glutted to the 
last limit of profitable labours and investment, leav- 
ing still alarpe and constantly increasing balance or 
surplus population in the villages and in the 
towns for whom there is literally no work to do. 
There are many acres round about his fields and 
available forest land still in Ceylon for the Sin- 
lialeso cultivater if he will avail himself as the 
British planters have done. But the Sinhalese 
agriculturist has not boon taught the art of cul- 
tivation as yet to see it as the China man, the 
Indian, or even the .Jaffna Tamil in Coylon sees it. 
Beyond Chona cultivation, in the most primi- 
tive miinnor, even as nomadic races adopt it. The 
vast bulk of Sinhalese cultivators do not care to 
.08 
venture. The fact that these villagers has often 
a small garden with palms and jak trees, does 
not brar on the question materially as it does not 
provide him and his family with any thing like 
what bis needs demand. But that he does not ex- 
tend this garden by adding to it year after year, 
acre after acre is what is ground for just com- 
plaint and regret. It is to this class of the po- 
pulation that the pupils going out of the School 
of Agriculture will carry their apostolic missions. 
To those who have lived long enough in the island 
to watch the progress and the poverty of the 
country growing side by side, it must be painfully 
clear. That to many — and that a large majority — 
education and misery have grown as bud and 
blossom out of the same stem. It may seem rank 
heresy to some of your readers to hear such an 
assertion confidently put forward. But there is no 
denying that the Sinhalese boy has unconsciously 
and gradually been wearied from the traditions of 
his ancestors by the glowing prospects ol wealth, 
influence and prosperity, that shines on his horizon 
in the early morning of his life as be turned his 
back upon his peaceful village and smiling corn- 
field to be initiated into the mysteries of English 
grammar. 
The Australian Colonist educated or uneducated 
seps the necessity for manual labour in the gardens 
where he grows fruit for home and foreign con- 
sumption, as the first occupation for the colonist- 
Jamaica, as may be gathered from the paper con- 
tributed to a periodical this year by one of its 
ablest Governors, is reviving under the invigorating 
influence of its fruit tra'^e. Singapore and the 
islands of the Malayan archipelago are busy with 
the cultivation of nutmeg, pepper, cloves and other 
tropical products. But the Ceylon of the Sinhalese 
is in this respect even under the blessings of 
British rule today what it was at the capitulation 
three quarters of a century ago. 
Agricultdri.st, 
SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP. 
Dr. Langenbeck has critically scrutinised the 
evidence tbat has been adduced during the Inst three 
years iu the controversy between the supporters of 
Darwin's theory of tbe formation of coral reefs on 
areas of subsidence and tbe advocates of Dr. Murray's 
rivl theory of their formation on areas of elevation, 
anu 1 he arrives at the conclusion that Darwin's theory 
hold^ its own as a general explanation, and is the 
only one that is applicable to the phenomena pre- 
sented by a large class of well known reefs. It 
may be added tbat it ia the theory which alone can 
account for tbe vast thicknesses of coral strata met 
with iu geological formations. It is evident that when 
coral grows ou an ai ja wliich is undergoing elevation, 
tbe coral stratum must be thin and patchy, whil« 
coral which is forme i cu subsiding foundation, and 
continues to grow while the snbsidence is going on 
may attain a very great thickness, limited only by, 
the time and vcrt cil extent of the depression. When 
there is neither subsidence nor elevation, the reef may 
extend laterally till tbo .depth becomes too great, 
but cannot become thicker. Ot course, coral will grow 
wherever tbe proper depth of water and the tup- 
ply of food arc favorable to the life of the coral 
iosect, but this life is most fiuickly checked on the 
rising areas, while there will be a rapid growth and 
accumulation on tbo areas of subsidence only. Dr. 
Murray's theory was first brought into prominouoe 
by the notice takou of it by the Duke of Argyll, 
whose fixed faith is that Darwin must invariably be 
wrong, aiiJ that, consequently those who ditl'er from 
him must ba right, There is, no doubt, some ob- 
sliiuicy and delusion on' the other sidp, but hardly 
to such an extent. — "Q<; iipus" in Mtlbonnie Lcailer. 
[The interesting question of the distance down 
from the surface at which the polyparia can live 
and work requires to be settlod.— Ed, T, -I.J 
