The Tennent that a single tree in Ambegamua district afforded the support of a Kandyan, his wife, and children. The area covered is, perhaps, equal to 30,000 acres. trunk timber is used for rafters, being hard and durable. The cultivation of the Areca catechu (which is compared to "an arrow shot from heaven" by the Hindu poets) was always one of the trade in ante-British times. A COCONUT CLIMBER. a chief sources of the Ceylon In the Portuguese era great quantities of the nuts were exported, and these formed the chief medium of exchange for the proportion of grain which the natives of Ceylon have for centuries drawn from Southern India. The Dutch esteemed the areca-nut very great source of revenue, and they made an exclusive trade of it. They exported yearly about 35,000 cwt. About the same quantity was annually shipped between 1806 and 1813. Of recent years as many as from 100,000 to 150,000 cwt. of nuts have been shipped in one year. The export is almost entirely to Southern India. An areca-nut tree requires six years to come into full bearing. It grows all over the low country and in the hills up to an elevation above sea-level of between 2000 and 3000 feet. Some coffee estate proprietors around Kandy in the early days planted areca-nuts along their boundaries, thereby forming a capital division line, and the cultivation has anew attracted the attention of colonists in recent years, especially in the Matale and Udagama districts. The chief areca gardens owned by natives are, however, to be found in the Kegala district. The home consumption is very large, and the area covered by the palm must be equal to 65,000 acres. The annual value of the exports of areca-nut produce is from £60,000 to £100,000. There are numerous other palms, more especially the magnificent talipot (Corypha umbraculifera), which flowers once (a grand crown of cream-coloured, wheatlike blossom twenty feet high) after sixty or eighty years, and then dies, and which is freely used for native huts, umbrellas, books, etc.; the heart also being, like that of the sago palm, good for human food. The bread-fruit tree, the jak, orange, and mango, as well as gardens of plantains and pine-apples, melons, guavas, papaws, etc., might be mentioned among products cultivated and of great use to the people of Ceylon; in fact, there is scarcely a native land-owner or cultivator in the country who does not possess a garden of palms or other fruit trees, besides paddy fields. The total area cultivated with palms and fruit trees cannot be less than from 800,000 to 830,000 acres (in addition to 100,000 acres under garden vegetables, yams, sweet and ordinary potatoes, roots, cassava, etc.); and although by far the major portion, perhaps four-fifths, of the produce is consumed by the people, yet the annual value of the export trade in its various forms, from this source, averages quite three-quarters of a million sterling, against less than £90,000 at the beginning of the century. Among food products recently added to the list of easily grown fruits and vegetables (by Dr. Trimen, Director of the Botanic Gardens, and his assistant Mr. Nock, of the Hakgalla Gardens), are a cabbage and some others from China; the tree-tomato, chocho, a parsnep, and a small yam, all introduced from the West Indies, and already very popular with the Sinhalese, especially of the Uva province. Mr. Nock has also introduced several new English varieties of potatoes. In this connection a new potato, brought from Peru by Mr. Arthur Sinclair, may be a success in Ceylon. Besides coconut oil, there is an export of essential oils expressed from citronella and lemon-grass, from cinnamon and cinnamon leaf, which, valued at £25,000 to £30,000, is of some importance to a section of the community. Of more importance to the people is their tobacco, of which about 25,000 acres are cultivated, the greater part of the crop being consumed locally, though as much as 50,000 cwts. of unmanufactured leaf, valued at £150,000, are exported to India. Of late years European planters have given some attention to the cultivation of tobacco, as well as cotton, but without much success. The natives have always grown a little cotton in certain districts, and at one time a good deal of cotton cloth was manufactured at Batticaloa, but the industry has almost entirely ceased, being driven out by the cheapness of Manchester goods. The establishment of cotton mills at Colombo, and the consequent local demand for the raw material, has given an impetus to the cultivation of the plant, and a good deal has been done by Dr. Trimen and the District Agents of Government to encourage the natives in cotton-growing. A new industry which has sprung up of recent years, however, is the collection of the shortstapled cotton from the pods of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax Malabaricum), exported under the name of "Kapok" (a Malay term) to Australia and Europe, to stuff chairs, mattresses, etc. As much as 2000 cwt., worth £4000, was exported in 1890. A small quantity of this tree cotton was annually exported from Ceylon so far back as the time of the Portuguese. Sugar-cane is largely grown in native gardens for use as a vegetable, the cane being sold in the bazaars, and the pith eaten as the stalk of a cabbage would be. At one time the eastern and southern districts of the island were thought to be admirably adapted for systematic sugar cultivation, but after plantations on an extensive scale had been opened by experienced colonists, and a large amount of capital sunk, it was found that, while the cane grew luxuriantly, the moist climate and soil did not permit of the sap crystallising or yielding a sufficiency of crystallisable material. There is, however, still one plantation and manufactory of sugar and molasses in European hands, near Galle. Before leaving the branches of agriculture more particularly in native hands, we may refer to the large expanse of patana grass and natural pasturage, especially in the Uva and eastern districts, which is utilised by the Sinhalese for their cattle, a certain number of which supply the meat consumed in the Central Province. By far the greater portion, however, of the beef and mutton required |