14 
WILLIS: HISTORY OF THE 
entrance of the gardens, and there is ample hotel accommo- 
dation in Kandy. In connection with the chief laboratory 
at Peradeniya a small working room has been opened in the 
garden at Henaratgoda, near which there is also a resthouse, 
and a similar room, with sleeping and living accommodation, 
is nearly completed at Hakgala. The Library of the Depart- 
ment has been much enlarged, and now amounts to about 
2,500 books and papers ; the chief periodicals are regularly 
received. 
The economic history of Ceylon during the last few years 
is chiefly that of tea, which is by far the chief industry of the 
Colony, though it deserves special remark that tea is not, in 
proportion to other exports, nearly so great a staple as coffee 
was. It forms about 52 per cent, of the value of the exports, 
cocoanuts, cacao, and other products forming no small pro- 
portion of the total. Mindful of the fate of coffee, the 
Department makes every effort to encourage the development 
of the minor industries, to introduce or discover new ones, 
and to aid the planters in combating the first appearances of 
disease among their crops. At present there seems every 
prospect of indiarubber and camphor becoming valuable new 
minor indu sr, ries in Ceylon, through the efforts of the Depart- 
ment, which in the case of rubber date from 1876. 
The present organization and staff of the Department is as 
follows : — 
Director : J. C. Willis, M.A., F.L.S. 
Chief Clerk : R. H. Pereira. 
Scientific Department» 
Botanist : The Director, 
Assistant Director and Mycologist : J. B. Carruthers, F.L.S. 
Entomologist : E. E. Green, F.E.S. 
Agricultural Chemist : M. K. Bamber, F.C.S. 
Assistant : H. Wright, A.R.C.S. 
Draughtsman : W. de Alwis, Muhandiram. 
Herbarium and Laboratory Attendants, and two Plant 
Collectors. 
