PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURES. 113

Para rubber was introduced into Ceylon, through the
energy and interest of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew,
in the year 1876, and at the present date it is estimated that
about 12,000 acres are planted with this valuable product.
The prices obtained for Ceylon-grown Para rubber are
most favourable to the enterprise, as much as 4s. 10d. a pound
having been paid for it, while a careful and judicious
selection of suitable land for its culture will still admit of a
very considerable development of the rubber industry in the
zountry (see p. 100).
In tanning barks and galls the trade of Ceylon is capable
of still further development, notwithstanding the no inconsiderable
 export of both these items of Colonial produce.
The produce of the
cocoanut palm—nowhere
wild in the country—represents
 one of the most
important items of the
Colony ’s productions,the
value of exported matter
in 1897 having reached
Rs. 13,142,621, obtained
from an estimated area
of 878,000 acres planted
with this tropical plant,
that was said to have been
introduced into Ceylon
about the vear 564 A.D.
by King Agrabodhi, and
planted somewhere in
the South of the Island.
The manufacture of
fibres from plants native
to or growing wild in the
country has perhaps not
received as full attention
as the subject deserves, owing to the difficulty in cheap
manufacture and competition against the produce of cultivated
 fibre-yielding plants. The so-called “bristle fibre,”
largely used in the manufacture of brooms and brushes,
the product of one of our palms—the Caryola urens, or
Toddy Palm—is largely exported, though it has no comparison
 with the amount exported of cocoanut fibre in the
form of yarn and rope. Many Ceylon plants belonging to the
orders Malvacez, Asclepiades, and Urticaces, apart from the
plantain, afford excellent fibres, and await improvement in
mechanical design in order to secure their ase in commerce.

COCOANUT PALM.