Multitudes so live, and it may be safely asserted that this tree alone furnishes one-fourth the means of sustenance for the population of the northern provinces.
[Footnote 1: _Borassus flabelliformis_.

For an account of the Palmyra, and its cultivation in the peninsula of Jaffna, see FERGUSON'S monograph on the _Palmyra Palm of Ceylon_, Colombo, 1850.] The _Jaggery Palm_[1], the _Kitool_ of the Singhalese, is chiefly cultivated in the Kandyan hills for the sake of its sap, which is drawn, boiled down, and crystallised into a coarse brown sugar, in universal use amongst the inhabitants of the south and west of Ceylon, who also extract from its pith a farina scarcely inferior to sago.

The black fibre of the leaf is twisted by the Rodiyas into ropes of considerable smoothness and tenacity.

A single Kitool tree has been pointed out at Ambogammoa, which furnished the support of a Kandyan, his wife, and their children.

A tree has been known to yield one hundred pints of toddy within twenty-four hours.
[Footnote 1: Caryota urens.] The _Areca_[1] _Palm_ is the invariable feature of a native garden, being planted near the wells and water-courses, as it rejoices in moisture.