AGRICULTURE,

Botanical and Agricultural Department.
Recognizing that the Island depends so largely on the
success of its agricultural industries, the Government of
Ceylon endeavours to aid the progress of these industries by
keeping up, not only an Irrigation Department, but a Scientific
 Department in which, as in the Agricultural Department
of the United States, a scientific study is made of the botany.
entomology, agriculture, and horticulture of the Colony,
with the object of aiding cultivators by introducing (or
breeding)and distributing new products suitable for cultivation
 or trial, or new varieties of those already existing, by
studying to improve the methods of cultivation and preparasion
 of products, and by investigating the diseases that attack

ASSAM RUBBER TREE, PERADENIYA,

cultivated plants and recommending methods of treatment.
Commencing so far back as 1810, this Department, which now
has its headquarters at Peradeniya, near Kandy, and whose
title—The Royal Botanic Gardens—now but incompletely
sxpresses its varied range of activities, was at first intended
for the study of thebotany of the Island, the investigation of
its resources in useful plants, and the introduction in small
quantities of useful and ornamental plants from other
climates, their trial on a small scale, and the subsequent
supply of small quantities of seeds or plants to any one who
might care to try them further. This branch of work was