, coffee and indiarubber are the products
cultivated by European and an increasing number of native planters in
the hill country and part of the low country of Ceylon. A great change
has been effected in the appearance of the country by the introduction
of the tea plant in place of the coffee plant, after the total failure
of the latter owing to disease. For some time coffee had been the most
important crop. In the old days it grew wild like cinnamon, and was
exported so far back as the time of the Portuguese, but was lightly
esteemed as an article of European commerce, as the berry was gathered
unripe, was imperfectly cured and had little flavour. In 1824 the
governor, Sir E. Barnes, introduced coffee cultivation on the West
Indian plan; in 1834 the falling off of other sources of supply drew
general attention to Ceylon, and by 1841 the Ceylon output had become
considerable, and grew steadily (with an interval in 1847 due to a
commercial crisis) till 1877 when 272,000 acres were under coffee
cultivation, the total export amounting to 103,000,000 lb. Then owing
to disease came a crisis, and a rapid decline, and now only a few
thousand acres are left. On the failure of the coffee crops planters
began extensively to grow the tea plant, which had already been known
in the island for several years. By 1882 over 20,000 acres had been
planted with tea, but the export that year was under 700,000 lb. Five
years later the area planted was 170,000 acres, while the export had
risen to nearly 14,000,000 lb. By 1892 there were 262,000 acres
covered with tea, and 71,000,000 lb. were that year exported. In 1897,
350,000 acres were planted, and the export was 116,000,000 lb. By the
beginning of the 20th century, the total area cultivated with tea was
not under 390,000 acres, while the estimate of shipments was put at
146,000,000 lb. annually. Nearly every plantation has its factory,
with the machinery necessary to prepare the leaf as brought in from
the bushes until it becomes the tea of commerce. The total amount of
capital now invested in the tea industry in Ceylon cannot be less than
L10,000,000. The tea-planting industry more than anything else has
raised Ceylon from the depressed state to which it fell in 1882.

Before tea was proved a success, however, _cinchona_ cultivation was
found a useful bridge from coffee to the Ceylon planter, who, however,
grew it so fr