January i, iSqz.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
457 
TIIK RI'IAL POSITIOX OF Tllf: XATIVF 
cm/nVATOH AXI) THE itEAXS 
WHEREBY HE CAX IMl'ROVE IT. 
( ComMnmcafcd.) 
The ulteranoee of Hia Exaellenoy tho Governor, 
and the other apeakera who addressed the meeting 
on Saturday evering iNov. 28lh) at the School of Agri- 
culture, will ahow to tho Ceylonese the deep interest 
taken by them in the future welfare of the nation as 
Bgrioulturiat, or cultivatora of the soil. Thera is 
no blinking at the fact that the Ceylon of today 
is to the Binhalese cultivator, the Ceylon of 70 years 
ago. For while commerce has increased and the 
planting enterprize of the British capitalist has 
progressed with leaps and bounds, the Sinhalese 
agricultarist has remained the veritable Rip Van 
Winkle of the country, to find himself sleeping 
over decades of progress, whioh 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 ranch the same in extent. Lands available 
for aswedduraizing is of limited extent in tho po- 
pulated villages, and lbs work itself involves much 
labour and expense whioh be cannot readily afford : 
and the consequence is that the limits of subsislanee 
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 end despondenoy 
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 tho 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 knowledge|(or its own sake — the purchase 
of a meal. But out of the thousand who by reason 
of their soholastie and literary attainments at 
Bohool and college are found knocking at the doors 
of Government offices for tho 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 offices, so also at tho 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 
brelhrens, till distress overtakes. The butler or the 
cook who earns his E?0 is better off by far than 
the educated clerk at R20 a month wilh 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, lees favored play-fellow of his 
childhood from an agricultural population large 
numbers have passed on to a wage earning section 
—seeking such aervicea, menial and laborious, as 
wore 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 a large 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- 
halese cultivatcr if ho will avail himself as tho 
British planters have done. But tho Sinhalese 
agriculturist has not been taught tho art of cul- 
tivation as yet to see it as the China man, tho 
Indian, or even the Jaffna Tamil in Ooylon sees it. 
Beyond Chena cultivation, in tho most primi- 
tive manner, even as nomadic races adopt it. The 
vast bulk of Sinhalese cultivators do not care to 
venture. The fact that these villagers has often 
a small garden with palms and jak trees, does 
not bear on the question materially as it docs not 
provide him and his family with any thing like 
wbat his needs demand. But that he does not ex- 
tend this garden by adding to it year after year, 
acre after acre is wbat is ground for just com- 
plaint and regret. It is to this doss of the po- 
pulation that the pupils going out of the School 
of Agriculture will carry their apostolic missionp. 
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 mast be painfnlly 
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 anoonsoiously 
and gradually been wearied from the traditions of 
bis ancestors by tho glowing prospects of wealth, 
infiuence and prosperity, that shines on bis horizon 
in the early morning of hia life as be turned his 
back upon hie peaceful village and smiling corn- 
field to be initiated into the mysteries of English 
grammar. 
The Australian Colonist educated or uneducated 
sers 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 oon- 
tributed to a periodical this year by one of its 
ablest Governors, is reviving under the invigorating 
influence of its fruit trade. Singapore and the 
islands of tho 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 wbat it was at the capitulation 
three quarters of a century ago. 
Aobioultobi.st. 
SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP. 
Ur. Langenbeck has eritioally scrutinised the 
evidence that has been adduced during the last three 
years in the controversy between the supporters of 
Darwin’s theory of tho lormalion of coral reels on 
areas of subsidence, and the advocates of Ur. M iirray’.s 
rival theory of their formation on areas of elevation, 
and ho arrives at tho eoncluslon that Darwin’s theory 
bolds its own as a general iixpInnaHon, and is the 
only one that is appltenble to the phenomena pre- 
sented by a largo class of well known reefa. It 
may be aildcd that it is the theory which alone can 
acconnt for tho vast thioknesscs of coral strata met 
with in geological fonnalione. It is evident that when 
coral grows on an area which is undergoing elevation, 
the coral stratum must be thin and pstohy, whila 
coral which is formo.l cn subsiding foundation, and 
continues to grow while the snbsideoca is going on 
may attain a very groat thickness, limited only by, 
tho time and verticil extent of tho depression. When 
there is neither aubsidence nor elevation, the reef may 
extend laterally til! the depth becomes too great, 
but cannot become thicker. 01 course, coral will grow 
wherever the proper deptli of water and the sup- 
ply of food are favorablo to the life of tlie coral 
insect, but this life is most quickly orieoked on tho 
rising areas, wliilo there will be a rapid growth and 
aocumulatiou on the areas of subsidenco only. 
Murray’s theory was first brought mto promineuoo 
by the notice taken of it by the Duke of Argyll^ 
whoso fixed faith is that Darwin must invariably be 
wrong, and that, consequently those who differ from 
him most be right, Tliere is, no doubt, some ob- 
Rlinacy and delusion on. the other side, but hardly 
to such an exteut. — “tE lipus” in Melbourne Leader. 
[The interesting question of the distance down 
from the surface at whioh the polyparia can live 
and work tequiroB to be Bettlod.— Ep, T, -l.J 
