5S2 
iiUpplepient to the "Tropical Agriculturist.’’ 
[June I, 1892. 
medicine wliich isgenernlly a trifling item) from 
the sale of produce and jircparntious. At least IS 
flowers arrive at maturity on each tree.* 
If a hottle of sweet toddy is left for a few 
hours, it becomes sour without any appli- 
cation of leaves or barks of trees. But such 
toddy is said to be not fit for drinking purposes. 
It is in order to en.sure fermentation that the 
barks of trees A'C. are piit. During the Kandyan 
tioverument, measures were passed to prosecute 
sellers as well as drinkers of toddy. Krom a 
dozen bottles of sweet toddy which fetch at the 
rate of Sj cents each, 8 of sour toddy could be 
prepared, which fetches 5 cents eacli.t Toddy 
is said to be efficacious in cases of sore mouth, 
biliousness, and cutaneous diseases. 
Mr. Lee, in his History of Ceylon, says : 
“There is another disease culled the Beri-beri, 
to which Kuropeans are very subject ; it is a 
sort of cramp so very violent that it prostrates 
those who are attacked by it, and the diseased 
part might be cut with a knife without causing 
any pain. The best rt'mudy is to oat pork and 
biscuit, to drink jialm-wine or toddy, and to 
smoke; three or four months living in this man- 
ner cures the patient entirely ; on this account 
the Captain-Oeneral Antonio de JIascarenhes, by 
the physicians’ advice, issued an order for every 
one to smoke in the camp, and to give a good 
example, he adopted the practice himself tirst, 
and after that time the disease was far less 
prevalent.” 
T. B. r. KKnELPANNA7.A. 
(To be continued.) 
• 
NOTES FROM A TRAVEELER’S DIARY- 
I have just had a run over a large area of 
the Province of Uva. By far the most interesting 
jilace I visited in the province was the. Happy 
Valley Industrial and Reformatory Schools. I 
alluded to this Institution in some of my pre- 
vious notes, but 1 was then able to say v(!ry 
little. After the return of its founder, the 
Rev. S. Langdon, from England, the Institution 
has put on fresh vigour, and the way in which 
the work is now carried on is all that could 
Iw desired, and is sure to elicit pojiuhir aiiplause. 
The most intorestuig part of the Institution 
is the Reformatory School where about 40 
juvenile offenders are at jiresent undergoing 
sentence of detention. Agricultural labour, dairy 
farming, poultry-keeping, tailoring, &c. are the 
principal industries. The dairy farm is tlie best 
that I have as yet seen in the island. A fine 
lot of selected poultry is kept, and the egg.s are 
hatched by the artificial mode of incubation. 
Curiously, the head juvenile offender at the b’e- 
formatory (Marsnl by name) who is about 11 
years of age, is a boy who was once charged 
before the Police Magistrate of Colombo with 
stealing arrowroot from an experimental plot 
at the Colombo School of Agriculture. He was, 
• The racemes are attacked by beetles, while the 
toddy is drunk by bats. Great damage is done in 
this way to trees. 
1 In some parts of the Kandyan Districts vinegar 
is also prepared from toddy. 
however, let off with a warning, but has subse- 
quently been sent to the Reformatory for steal- 
ing some clothes in Colombo. This boy is now 
the favourite of the place, has forgotten all 
his thieving propensities, and I am assured that 
he has thoroughly reformed. Me learns dairy 
farming and gardening, and seemed to be an 
exja-rt in making butter and cream, and I would 
not be surpri.sed it he bo some day called to 
the Colombo School of Agriculture as a dairy 
e.xpert. 
A largo area of land at the Happy Valley 
has been put under tea experiments in the cui- 
tivation of fruil, paddy, tobacco and various 
other crops are also being carried on. It would 
be well if experiments in the cultivation of barley 
are also started on a somewhat large scale. 
I am surprised that the cultivation of ging(!r 
does not attract the attention it deserves of the 
goyiyas of Uva. A large ipiantity of the ginger 
consumed in the Province, 1 think, is brought from 
the Western Province. During the late epidemic 
of cholera, in some parts of the Province, a 
pound of ginger was sold for from R1 to R2, 
The lowest [irice of a pound of ginger at Badulla 
oil any day is 12^ cents. 
The patanas of Uva may in some respects 
be compared to some of tlie owita lands we 
often meet with in the B'esterii Province, covered 
with rank grass. Bracken fern is commonly met 
with on the imtanas, the presence of which Is 
suppo.sed to indicate fertility of the soil ; the 
daffodil orchid is also common, and it is easily 
recognised by the yellow colour of its flowers 
which appear in the months of February and 
March, peeping through the grass on their long 
slender stalks from among tlm jiatana grass. 
The count. y around llapjiy Valley seems to 
have once been thickly populated, and was 
jirobably the site of Portngue.se enciimpiiients 
during the struggles they had with the Sinhalese 
kings. The names of places such as llalatutcnne 
(rice store plain), Huldummulie, (the corner at 
which rice was distributed) and Bathgangoda 
(the villages in which the rice was cooked and 
served) bear out those facts. 
CROTON TKHdUM. 
Some time ago a writer in the Tiims of Cej/hn 
culled attenlion to the danger in planting- 
croton-oil trees among tea bu.->hes, as was then 
the cii.se on many places iu ’the Matule district, 
since it was feared that while plucking the leaves 
from the latter, some leaves of the former 
might accidently fall into tlm baskets and be 
mannfuclured into ten. Native.s have a dread 
of tho croton tree, as its poisonous properties 
are .so well known to tlieni, that they fear even 
to pass under its shadow. Even native medical 
practitioners, in prescribing the oil obtained from 
the seed a.s a purgative, use only a very small 
(|uantity, the dose for au adult being about half 
n grain or only a drop which is rnblied on a 
betel leaf and given to the jiatient to be cbewed 
and SAvallowed, Some Sinlialeso cartmeu at 
