m worth collecting; this
species of rosin exudes in large quantities from an incision in the
bark, but the amount of exports shows its insignificance. It is a fair
sample of Ceylon productions; nothing that is uncultivated is of much
pecuniary value.

CHAPTER XI.

Indigenous Productions--Botanical Gardens--Suggested Experiments--Lack
of Encouragement to Gold-diggers--Prospects of Gold-digging--We want
"Nuggets"--Who is to Blame?--Governor's Salary--Fallacies of a Five
Years' Reign--Neglected Education of the People--Responsibilities of
Conquest--Progress of Christianity.

The foregoing chapter may appear to decry in toto the indigenous
productions of Ceylon, as it is asserted that they are valueless in
their natural state. Nevertheless, I do not imply that they must
necessarily remain useless. Where Nature simply creates a genus,
cultivation extends the species, and from an insignificant parent stock
we propagate our finest varieties of both animals and vegetables.
Witness the wild kale, parsnip, carrot, crab-apple, sloe, etc., all
utterly worthless, but nevertheless the first parents of their now
choice descendants.

It is therefore impossible to say what might not he done in the
improvement of indigenous productions were the attention of science
bestowed upon them. But all this entails expense, and upon whom is
this to fall? Out of a hundred experiments ninety-nine might fail. In
Ceylon we have no wealthy experimentalists, no agricultural
exhibitions, no model farms, but every man who settles in a colony has
left the mother country to better himself; therefore, no private
enterprise is capable of such speculation. It clearly rests upon the
government to develop the resources of the country, to prove the value
of the soil, which is delivered to the purchaser at so much per acre,
good or bad. But no; it is not in the nature of our government to move
from an established routine. As the squirrel revolves his cage, so
governor after governor rolls his dull course along, pockets his
salary, and leaves the poor colony as he found it.

The government may direct the attention of the public, in reply, to
their own establishment--to the botanical gardens. Have we not
botanical gardens? We have, indeed, and much good they should do, if
conducted upon the principle of developing local resources; but this
would entail expense, and, like everything in the hands of government,
it dies in its birth for want of