264 
TMe TROPJCAL AQRJCULTURIST. 
[October 1, 1890. 
height of the 10-year old jaktrees ib about forty feet, and 
the average girth about eighteen inches, a very good 
growth considering that no thinnings have been made. 
Light thinnings could now be made with advantage. 
The other block at Pouarrhua is also on the whole 
Buccessful, except toward.s the top of the ridge, where 
he soil is inferior. The plantation is in some parts 
pure jak, in others jak mixed with Innumidella. 
Wherever the latter appears the jak is suppressed. 
Lunumidella is therefore not a good tree ns a mixture 
with jak, and should be omitted, especially in a fuel 
plantation, its quality as a fuel being iudifferent. Creep- 
ers in this plantation are pulling down the young poles 
and saplings, and should be cleared at an early date. 
The teak plantation at Puttalam is, in Mr. Bronn’s 
opinion, the most successful of our teak plantations. 
It was started in 1880 by Mr. Maggiolini, Forester of 
the North-Western Province, who, with the help of his 
baggage coolies, and sometimes of road defaulters and 
jail prisoners, planted up a small plot of ground with 
leak 14 ft. by 14 ft. This distance apart proving too 
great for proper growth, the distance apart of the plant 
in the plantation made in the following year was 
reduced to 6 feet by 6 feet. The area was success- 
fully extended in 1883 ; but the extension made 
in 1888 had rather a large percentage of failures, owing 
to the season (November) being too dry for proper ger- 
mination and survival. Twenty acres more were taken 
in hand in 1889, at a cost of Kl,082. The seeds on this 
occasion were put in 6 ft. by 5 ft-, as even when six feet 
apart they did not form leaf canopy early enough. 
Seeds of satin were mixed with the teak, as the latter 
species seems to thrive better when in mixture. 
The total cost of the plantation up to date is Rl,673, 
and the revenue obtained by sale of thinnings in 1886 
was R203, leaving a net expenditure up to date of 
Bl,370 for a total area of 37 acres. 
To the twenty-seven acres of patana plantation men. 
tioned in paragraph 52 of my last annual report, the 
Assistant Conservator, Uva, has added another thir- 
teen acres at a cost of K792,or about R56 per acre. The 
blanks in the older plantation have been filled with gre- 
villea and casuarina, and the newer plantation con- 
sists of casuarina, sapu, and ingesaman. The planta- 
tion is a very successful one, and reflects credit on the 
Assistant Conservator. 
The total expenditure on the Badulla plantation from 
the commencement amounts to ; — Twenty-seven acres 
in 1888, R2,195'45, upkeep of do. 1889, R42578 ; thir- 
teen acres in 1889, R735’93, in all forty acres— total ex- 
penditure, R3, 357 T6, or nearly R84 per acre, rather a 
high figure considering the prices at which forest land 
has been sold in the past; Mr. Moss considers that 
weeding should be kept up for three years, and, al- 
though this is the cause of the great cost of upkeep, 
it is indispensable on account of the encroaching nature 
of grass roots. 
At Haputale about a quarter of an acre was 
planted up with iron-bark by the depot cooly. 
The Assistant Conservator, Northern Province, again 
brings to notice the proposal originally made by 
Mr. A. Clark of making plantations of palmyra 
on the vast expanse of sand near Jaffna. A large 
amount of this timber is exported to India annually 
by private parties, and the supply is now very limited. 
This wood has a pre-eminence in strength over Moul- 
mein teak, is in great request for building, and 
white ants will not touch it. The food products 
of the tree are too well-known to require mention. 
Improvement Fellings and Ceebpee Cuttings. — 
Little systematic work has been done in this respect, 
but several of the forest ofiicers when making their 
inspections are accompanied by two or three coolies 
with catties, and these out down the creepers met 
with on and near their routes through the forest. As 
eegards iiiiprovement fellings, they are badly wanted, 
•specially in the halmilla forests, where a little 
li;-U should be given to seedlings, in order to en- 
. courage them to grow up. When the dominating 
tree belongs to a spicies not worth felling, suffi- 
cient light can be usually let in at small cost 
by girdling the trees. This is especially wanted, Mr. 
Broun reports, in tho Verani lorost, Eastern Pro- 
vince, between Putuvil and Panawa, which is crowded 
with halmilla advance growth. A beginning should 
now be made in most Provinces. 
Bxpeeiments in Exotics. — By desire of Govern- 
ment this Department will undertake before 
the commencement of the south-west monsom 
of 1890, a plantation of Para rubber {Revea 
hrar.ilieriais) from seed supplied by the Royal Botanic 
Garden, Heneratgoda. The place selected for the 
plantation is n- ar Nambapana in Sabaragamuwa, where 
the climate is considered by Dr. Trinien to he suit- 
able, and whence export will be easy. 
The Gobsi rvator i f Forests, Travancore, has been 
asked to supply this Department with seed from 
localities in the hills wher ■ teak grows most vigor- 
ously. The seed having arrived, a site with similar 
conditions of soil and elevation to that of the Travan- 
core hills will be selected, probably near Kadugannawa. 
The Conservator of Forests, School Circle, North- 
Western Province and Oudh, has also been asked to 
supply us wilh small quantities of seeds of some 
Himalayan conifers, viz., Cedrus deodora, Pinna 
longifolia, and Finns excelsa, for trial near Nuwara 
Eliya, wliere, if the trees succeed, they will be as 
ornamental as they are useful. 
The Assistant Conservator, Northern Province, re- 
ports that a mahogany tree planted in Jaffna in 1852 
is now 7 feet in circumference at breast height, and w^ith 
a clean bole of 16 feet. This means an annual average 
increment of 2'3 in. in girth, or '74 in. in diameler, or 
in other words, the annual concentric rings are on an 
average '37 in. thick. 
We have extracted at such length because the 
passage taken over supplies just the kind of informa- 
tion which many planters and others are anxious to 
obtain. It will be seen that jak is one of the best 
trees to cultivate on the plains and in the lower hill 
zones. As regards Finns longifolia, the appearance of 
a beautiful specimen in the Hakgala Gardens affords 
strong proof that it will do well at Nuwara Eliya 
and in its neighbourhood. This tree yields excellent 
timber. Encouragement ought also to be derived 
from the fact that a tree of Cupressus toru- 
losa about 20 years old, cut down last year by 
Mr, Nock, gave 176 feet of 1 inch hoards, much 
like white pine in appearance aud easy to work. 
Why Cedrus deodora, which is the Indian re- 
presentative of the oedar of Lebanon, has not 
been a success in Ceylon we cannot say, 
but this tree and Pinus excelsa would be acquisi- 
tions. One of the best and most satisfactory 
trees which we have borrowed from Austra- 
lia is Grevillea rohusta. The swamp mendora 
alluded to is one of the most curious in 
its growth of our trees. Specimens may be 
seen at Kalutara, growing out of the water by 
the side of the Kaluganga, with roots springing up 
several feet in height, like vast sharp wedges. Satin- 
wood, ebony and the allied “ calamander” and iron- 
wood deserve large attention from our Forest De- 
partment. There are half-a-dozen young na trees 
near the plot where the band plays in Victoria 
Park, Colombo, which promise to vie in beauty of 
foliage with the splendid specimens of iron wood trees 
on the edge of the Kandy Lake. This and similar trees, 
some of the red-leaved Eugenias especially, ought 
to be largely used for the adornment of our 
towns. We are glad to learn that the blue 
gum and cryptomeria plantation at Nuwara 
Eliya is a fair success. Both trees coppice well, 
we believe : of the blue gum we are certain. The 
difficulty, indeed, is to stop the growth of the numerous 
shoots which spring from the stocks of felled blue gum 
trees. It is well to know that lunumedilla which grows 
very rapidly and supplies a pretty oedar-like 
timber for ceilings and curiously enough for canoe 
outriggers, although it is said not to stand ex- 
posure to weather, ought not to be grown with jak, if 
the latter is to get fair play. Satinwood and 
teak, on the other hand, grow well in assooiation. 
What is stated of a mahogamy tree at Jaffna is 
