Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/202

198 around the gardens. The experiment station was formerly a private estate bought by the gardens at a low price because it had been allowed to run down and the chocolate trees nearly all become diseased. Scientific methods of tending and care have been introduced and a model plantation developed. Here experiments are made with new agricultural crops and with new methods of treatment. The different species of trees furnishing rubber are being tried as well as improved varieties

of chocolate, cardomoms and other crops. Throughout Ceylon there is much general interest in scientific agriculture and the controller of the experiment station has the encouragement and moral support of the thinking population, both European and native. The daily newspapers at Colombo also give much attention to such matters and assume a sympathetic attitude toward government scientific work, in refreshing contrast to many of the newspapers in this country.