tea is a much
hardier plant than coffee, and grows on poorer soil.

_Irrigation_.--The native rulers covered the whole face of the country
with a network of irrigation reservoirs, by which Ceylon was enabled
in ancient times to be the great granary of southern Asia. Wars, and
the want of a strong hand to guide the agriculture of the country, led
to the decay of these ancient works, and large tracts of land, which
were formerly highly productive, became swampy wastes or dense
forests. The remains of some of the larger irrigation works are
amongst the most interesting of the memorials of Ceylon's former
greatness. Some of the artificial lakes were of great size. Minneri,
formed by damming across the valleys between the low hills which
surround it with an embankment 60 ft. wide at the top, is at this day
20 m. in circumference. It has recently been restored by government,
and is capable of irrigating 15,000 acres; while the Giant's Tank,
which has also been restored, irrigates 20,000 acres. Another lake,
with an embankment several miles in length, the Kalawewa, was formed
by damming back the waters of the Kalaoya, but they have forced their
way through the embankment, and in the ancient bed of the lake, or
tank, are now many small villages. In connexion with these large tanks
were numerous canals and channels for supplying smaller tanks, or for
irrigating large tracts of fields. Throughout the district of
Nuwarakalawiya every village has its tank. The embankments have been
formed with great skill, and advantage has been taken to the utmost of
the slightest fall in the land; but they in common with the larger
works had been allowed to fall into decay, and were being brought to
destruction by the evil practice of cutting them every year to
irrigate the fields. The work of restoring these embankments was
undertaken by the government, and 100 village tanks were repaired
every year, besides eighteen larger works. In 1900 a sum of five
million rupees was set apart for these larger undertakings.

_Cultivation and Products._--The area of uncultivated land is little
over 3-1/2 million acres, whereas fully four times that amount is
capable of cultivation. A great deal is waste, besides lagoons, tanks,
backwaters, &c. Thick forest land does not cover more than 5000 sq. m.
Scrub, or chena, and patana grass cover a very great area. Tea, cacao,
cardamoms, cinchona