These diseases generally prevail to the greatest extent during
the dry season. This district is particularly subject to severe
droughts; months pass away without a drop of rain or a cloud upon
the sky. Every pool and tank is dried up; the rivers forsake
their banks, and a trifling stream trickles over the sandy bed.
Thus all the rotten wood, dead leaves and putrid vegetation
brought down by the torrent during the wet season are left upon
the dried bed to infect the air with miasma.
This deadly climate would be an insurmountable obstacle to the
success of estates. Even could managers be found to brave the
danger, one season of sickness and death among the coolies would
give the estate a name which would deprive it of all future
supplies of labor.
Indigo is indigenous to Ceylon, but it is of an inferior quality,
and an experiment made in its cultivation was a total failure.
In fact, nothing will permanently succeed in Ceylon soil without
abundance of manure, with the exception of cinnamon and
cocoa-nuts. Even the native gardens will not produce a tolerable
sample of the common sweet potato without manure, a positive
proof of the general poverty of the soil.
Nevertheless, Ceylon has had a character for fertility.
Bennett, in his work entitled "Ceylon and its Capabilities,"
describes the island in the most florid terms, as "the most
important and valuable of all the insular possessions of the
imperial crown." Again he speaks of "its fertile soil, and
indigenous vegetable productions," etc., etc. Again: "Ceylon,
though comparatively but little known, is pre-eminent in natural
resources." All this serves to mislead the public opinion.
Agricultural experiments in a tropical country in a little garden
highly manured may be very satisfactory and very amusing.
Everything must necessarily come to perfection with great
rapidity; but these experiments are no proof of what Ceylon will
produce, and the popular idea of its fertility has been at length
proved a delusion.
It is a dangerous thing for any man to sit down to "make" a book.
If he has had personal experience, let him write a description of
those subjects which he understands; but if he attempts to "make"
a book, he must necessarily collect information from hearsay,
when he will most probably gather some chaff with his grain.
Can any man, when describing the "fertility" of Ceylon, be aware
that newly-cleared forest-land will only produce one crop of the
miserable grain called korrakan? Can he understand why the
greater portion of Ceylon is covered by dense thorny jungles? It
is simply this - that the land is so desperately poor that it
will only produce one crop, and thus an immense acreage is
required for the support of a few inhabitants; thus, from ages
past up to the present time, the natives have been continually
felling fresh forest and deserting the last clearing, which has
accordingly grown into a dense, thorny jungle, forming what are
termed the Chénars" of Ceylon.
