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AGRICULTURE.

The greater part of the tea shipped from Ceylon at present
goes to the United Kingdom, but the exports to other
countries are steadily increasing, so that they bid fair soon
to form one half of the total. The next best customers of
Ceylon are Australia, Russia, and America. The last-named
market is the chief destination of the green tea made in
Ceylon.
Twenty years ago China siill supplied the bulk of the tea
consumed in Britain, while India provided about one-third,
and Ceylon’s share was but a poor 1 per cent. Now Ceylon’s
proportion of the total is 35 per cent., and that of China has
sunk to 8 per cent. In the early days of planting in Ceylon
much better prices were obtained than at present; the price
steadily fell from $0:30} a pound in 1885 to $0°13 in 1902;
in January, 1904, the average wholesale price in bond in
London was $0-14% a pound.

Coffee.

Arabian coffee cultivation, the mainstay of Ceylon agriculture
 from 1840 to 1880, has now shrunk to a mere shadow
of its former greatness, the area occupied being only about
4,000 acres, as against 275,000 in 1878, and the export in 1903
9,862 cwt., against 974,333 cwt. in 1877, the year in which it
reached its maximum. The chief cause of the decay of the
industry was, as mentioned above, the attacks of disease, but
at present the low price of coffee, due to the enormous
production of Brazil, tends to prevent any attempt to
resuscitate the cultivation on better lines.
The shrub is cultivated on estates between 3,000 and 5,000
feet above sea level ; the ripe cherry-like fruits are picked,
the pulp and the parchment-like seed coats removed. and the
seed kernels or coffee beans exported.
Liberian coffee, a hardier species, is also cultivated to a
slight extent, but its product obtains a much lower price, and
the cultivation is dving out.

Cacao, Cocoa, or Chocolate.

This product is the third in importance among the Island’s
exports, and second only to tea in the European planting
industry. The quantity exported in 1903 was no less than
6,686,848 1b.
Cacao plantations cover an area of about 35,000 acres,
chiefly in the districts north and east of Kandy, where the
deeper alluvial soils of the Matale and Dumbara valleys.