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AGRICULTURE.

Dther Spices.

Besides those mentioned, Ceylon cultivates nutmegs,
pepper, cloves, vanilla, and several other spices, -but only in
small quantities, the exports in 1903 being—
Nutmegs «11,760 1b. Pepper «eo 65,744 1b,
Cloves ... 4,368 ,, Vanilla ... 896 ,,

Tobacco.
Ceylon, though unknown in European or American
tobacco markets, yet has a large trade in this article, locally
and with South India, for which a coarse heavy tobacco is
grown on about 25,000 aeres of land in the Jaffna District of
the Northern Province. The great object of the grower is
weight; the particular variety cultivated produces very
large leaves, and the curing, instead of being spread out
over several weeks, occupies only as many days, resulting
in a rank tobacco with so strong a flavour that few white
men can acquire a taste for it. A small quantity of better
leaf is grown in Dumbara, near Kandy, and cheroots made
from this have a local sale among Europeans in Ceylon; in
flavour and quality they resemble the well-known Trichinopoli
 cheroots of Southern India.

Drugs.
Cinchona, whose hark ig the source of the valuable
alkaloid quinine, once the mainstay of the Ceylon planting
industry, now occupies but a very minor place, though a
tittle replanting of certain areas with the best varieties of
Java trees has lately been going on. A small quantity of
bark is still exported, the amount in 1903 being 170,565 1b.,
a remarkable contrast to 1886, when the export reached
the enormous figure of 15,892,678 1b., valued at Rs. 4,028,579,
or $1,450,000 at the rate of exchange then ruling.
Coca (Erythrozylon Coca), the South American shrub
whose leaves yield the valuable drug cocaine, was introduced
through the Botanic Gardens years ago ; of late its cultivation
 has been taken up with success on a small scale, and the
Ceylon exports are now obtaining the highest market prices.
Another drug plant cultivated in a few localities is the
Croton (Croton Tiglium), whose seeds yield croton oil, a very
powerful purgative. A small export of seeds goes on.

Fibres.
By far the most important fibre produced in Ceylon is
coir, the fibre of the cocoanut palm, already described. In
addition to this there are two other important palm fibres