ty exported increased, but the value declined.

Unlike the coffee plant, the hardy tea plant grows from sea-level to
7000 ft. altitude; but crown forest-lands above 5000 ft. are no longer
sold, so that a very large area on the highest mountain ranges and
plateaus is still under forest. Moreover, on the tea plantations
arboriculture is attended to in a way unknown in 1875; the Australian
eucalypts, acacias and grevilleas, Indian and Japanese conifers, and
other trees of different lands, are now freely planted for ornament,
for protection from wind, for firewood or for timber. A great advance
has been made at Hakgalla and Nuwara Eliya, in Upper Uva, and other
high districts, in naturalizing English fruits and vegetables. The
calamander tree is nearly extinct, and ebony and other fine cabinet
woods are getting scarce; but the conservation of forests after the
Indian system has been taken in hand under a director and trained
officers, and much good has been done. The cinnamon tree (wild in the
jungles, cultivated as a shrub in plantations) is almost the only one
yielding a trade product which is indigenous to the island. The
coco-nut and nearly all other palms have been introduced.

Among other agricultural products mention must be made of _cacao_, the
growth and export of which have steadily extended since coffee failed.
Important also is the spice or aromatic product of cardamoms.

The culture of _indiarubber_ was begun on low-country plantations, and
Ceylon rubber is of the best quality in the market. The area of
cultivation of the coco-nut palm has been greatly extended since 1875
by natives as well as by Europeans. The products of this palm that are
exported, apart from those so extensively used in the island itself,
exceed in a good year L1,000,000 sterling in value. Viticulture and
cotton cultivation, as well as tobacco growing, are being developed
along the course of the new northern railway.

Taking the trade in the products mentioned as a whole, no country can
compete with the United Kingdom as a customer of Ceylon. But there is
a considerable trade in nearly all products with Germany and America;
in cardamoms with India; in cinnamon with Spain, Italy, Belgium,
Australia, Austria and France; and in one or other of the products of
the coco-nut palm (coco-nuts, coco-nut oil, copra, desiccated
coco-nut, poonac, coir) with Belgium, Russia, France,