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.
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