CHAPTER  V.
 

  NATIVE AGRICULTURAL  AND MANUFACTURING INTERESTS.



Paddy (rice) Cultivation—Cinnamon—Coconut, Palmyra, Kitul, Areca-

   nut,  and other  Palms—Essential Oils—Tobacco—Cotton—Sugar¬

   cane—Other Fruit-trees and Vegetables—Natural Pasture—Local

   Manufactures.



     WHETHER or not Ceylon was in ancient times  the

      granary of South-Eastern Asia, certain  it  is  that

long before the Portuguese or Dutch,  not to speak of the

British, era,  that condition had lapsed, and so far from

the island having a  surplus of food products, the  British,

like their European  predecessors, had  to import a certain

quantity of rice from Southern India to feed their troops

and the population of the capital  and other chief towns.*

There can  be no doubt as to the large quantity of rice

which  could  be  grown  around the network of tanks in

the north and  east,  which have been lying  for centuries

broken and unused in the midst of unoccupied territory.

  Driven  from the   northern  plains  by  the conquering

Tamils, the  Sinhalese,  taking refuge  in the mountain

zone more to the south and west, found a country in many

respects less suited for rice than for fruit and root culture;

but  yet, under  British  as  under native  rule,  rice or

paddy-growing continues to be the one most general and

favourite occupation of the Sinhalese people, as indeed

  * Old Sinhalese records show that rice was imported into Ceylon from

the Ooromandel Coast in the second century before Christ.

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