January i, 1892.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
NATIVE AGEICULTURE IN CEYLON. 
" Agrioulturist," whose communication appear 
elsewhere, is too pessimistio. Native agriculture 
has advanced in erea and to some extent im- 
proved in modes of tillage and amount of yield 
since the capitulation and the days of the Madras 
Civilians and Governor North. The picture drawn 
by the latter of the scantiness of rice grown in 
the island in his day was far more marked by 
Bembrandt-like shadow than the scene depicted by 
Governor Haveiock. Most of the people, however, 
have never heard of Malthus as a philosopher or 
of thrift as a virtue ; and it is too true that in 
many parts of the island population is out-growing 
the means of subsistence. The remedy is either 
extended cultivation of the land, or improved and 
intensive cultivation of the portions already brought 
under the plough or the mamoty. 
Let us have extended rice cultivation by all means, 
but more important still is the duty, which ought 
to be, we were going to say compulsorily pressed 
on the people, of so cultivating the lands already 
under crops, as to increase the yield manifold 
beyond what is now harvested. The experiments 
to which Mr. Green alluded and those recorded in 
Mr. Drieberg's comprehensive report show the vast 
room there is for possible improvement and the 
extent to which improved methods when adopted 
are rewarded. If we felt as Governor Haveiock 
seemed from the tone of his utterances to feel, 
that poor returns from rice culture are the rule, 
and that such inadequate returns are due, not to 
the ignorance and carelessness of the cultivators 
but to natural causes which can be neither con- 
trolled nor overcome, of course we should feel as 
much the necessity of abolishing the paddy tax as 
His Excellency does. But in vi^w of what 
was stated in the Hall of the Agricultural 
College, apart from the opinions of experienced 
servants of Government and others, previously 
expressed, we hold that the duty of Gov- 
ernment is to retain the tax, using a large 
proportion of it to encourage not only improved 
and extended rice culture but the growth of 
other cereals and food products in the shape of 
root plants and fruit trees. We are specially glad 
to notice that the attention of the Principal and 
pupils of the Agricultural College is specially 
directed to such leguminous plants as dal and 
horae gram. The crops from such plants are far 
richer in nutritive properties than rice is, and the 
long-vexed question of leguminous plants deriving 
a large portion of their nitrogen from the air 
seems to have been settled in the affirmative, 
Lawes and Gilbert being converts to that pro- 
position. To legumes ought to be added a larger 
cultivation of Indian corn than at present— the 
" mealies," to use the Cape Dutch term, for 
what formed the staple cereal of the colony whence 
Sir Arthur Haveiock came to Ceylon. If the natives 
BO used their cattle as to get plentiful supplies 
of butter as well as milk, the boiled heads of Indian 
corn, seasoned with butter, would constitute a 
delicious as well as a nutritive diet. Indian corn, 
like all other similar products, requires occasional 
applications of fertilizing matter, and one of the 
chief duties of the missionaries from the Agricul- 
tural College must be to teach the people the value, 
when collected and properly composted, of refuse 
matter which, when neglected, becomes not only 
oflensive but injurious and dangerous to life and 
health." "Agriculturist" draws a gloomy picture 
of the condition of large numburti of Sinhalese 
educated to look dowa on boneat labour, iiut edu- 
cation properly conducted, as it is at the Agrioaltural 
School, ought ever to recognize the dignity of labour ; 
and knowledge ought not to be a hindrance but a 
help to the conscientious and industrious tiller 
of the soil, who ought to feel proud of "eating 
bread in the sweat of his face." We were specially 
interested in that portion of Mr. Drieberg's re- 
port which indicated that a Sinhalese gentleman 
who had received a training at the College had 
been successful in raising the tuber known as the 
common or Irish potato — not to be confounded 
with the sweet potato, which latter has been so 
naturalized in Ceylon as to be often regarded as 
indigenous. Both these valuable roots are really 
of American origin, and an abundant cultivation 
of both would largely alleviate that pressure o( 
population on the means of existence which " Agri- 
culturist" truly states is becoming a serious problem. 
We have alluded to the breeding of cattle and 
horses, — ponies, such as those for which Java is 
famous, would be specially useful, — and we have 
attracted attention to the necessity of increasing 
our food supplies in the shape of good and whole- 
some freshwater fish. This question, curiously 
enough, is an agricultural one. The water of irriga- 
tion in Ceylon is plentifully peopled by fish, but 
we want superior varieties such as the large golden 
carp of Java in which island, as our late friend 
Mr. Moens told us, the cultivators gather two 
harvests, of almost equal value : first the paddy 
crop and then the teeming wealth of fish. The fewer 
goats in a country the better : they are the inveterate 
destroyers of all vegetation. But could we not in 
regions of the lowcountry too dry for the existence 
of the land leech, and in our mountains at alti- 
tudes too high for the leech fa its, breed 
sheep superior to the long-legged, goat-like crea- 
tures which in Jaffna are mainly valuable foi 
manuring tobacco and vegetable fields? And tho 
mention of Jaffna reminds us that great benefit to 
the Smhalese would result, were they in many 
places to imitate the careful and productive well« 
cultivation for which the northern Peninsula ia 
distinguished. 
Hebe is an Italian recipe (1659) for making 
Tea. "Take a pint ot water and make it boily 
then put in it two pinches of Tea, and immediatel ; 
remove it from the fire, for the Tea must not boil ; 
you Itt it rest and infuse time enough to say two 
or three paters {'Vespaca de deux ou trois pater'), 
and then serve it with powdered sugar on a poroe- 
lain dish; so that each one may sugar to his 
taste — Madras Times." 
In view of the " boom " that there has been in 
Ceylon Tea of late, it is a little strange to hear that 
even one tea planter thinks of deserting that island 
to try his luck in another part of the world. We 
are informed that a gentleman from Ceylon was in 
California last month, with a view of embarking in 
the Tea planting industry on the Pacific coast, He 
believes the climate and soil favourable for the growth 
of the plant. He is indeed more sanguine than some 
section of the American Press. A contemporary on the 
Pacitio coast, Isays ; — "Considering the cheapness of 
labour employed in this industry in C^ina, Japan, 
and Ceylon, even if natural conditious on this coat 
are favourable, it is difficult to see where the hands 
are to be found willing to work in California Tea 
plantations for wages anywhere near as low as those 
paid abroad. Chinese and Japanese laboarera are 
out of the question, and no white man has yet been 
found iu California who will willingly work for Uss 
than S?150 per day." And a New York trade paper 
endorses this with the remark.— "It has been demon- 
strated that the Tea plant will thrive in the Southern 
Statoi, but owing to the exponsiveneas of labour Tea 
growing oaunot be made a profitable iudustry.— J/adra* 
