Nearly four parts of the island are undulating plains, slightly diversified by offsets from the mountain system which entirely covers the remaining fifth.

Every district, from the depths of the valleys to the summits of the highest hills, is clothed with perennial foliage; and even the sand-drifts, to the ripple on the sea line, are carpeted with verdure, and sheltered from the sunbeams by the cool shadows of the palm groves.
SOIL .-- But the soil, notwithstanding this wonderful display of spontaneous vegetation, is not responsive to systematic cultivation, and is but imperfectly adapted for maturing a constant succession of seeds and cereal productions.[1] Hence arose the disappointment which beset the earliest adventurers who opened plantations of coffee in the hills, on discovering that after the first rapid development of the plants, delicacy and languor ensued, which were only to be corrected by returning to the earth, in the form of manures, those elements with which it had originally been but sparingly supplied, and which were soon exhausted by the first experiments in cultivation.
[Footnote 1: See a paper in the Journal of Agriculture, for March, 1857, Edin.: on _Tropical Cultivation and its Limits_, by Dr.MACVICAR.] _Patenas_ .-- The only spots hitherto found suitable for planting coffee, are those covered by the ancient forests of the mountain zone; and one of the most remarkable phenomena in the oeconomic history of the island, is the fact that the grass lands on the same hills, closely adjoining the forests and separated from them by no visible line save the growth of the trees, although they seem to be identical in the nature of the soil, have hitherto proved to be utterly insusceptible of reclamation or culture by the coffee planter.[1] These verdant openings, to which the natives have given the name of _patenas_, generally occur about the middle elevation of the hills, the summits and the hollows being covered with the customary growth of timber trees, which also fringe the edges of the mountain streams that trickle down these park-like openings.

The forest approaches boldly to the very edge of a "patena," not disappearing gradually or sinking into a growth of underwood, but stopping abruptly and at once, the tallest trees forming a fence around the avoided spot, as if they enclosed an area of solid stone.

These sunny expanses vary in width from a few yards to many thousands of acres; in the lower ranges of the hills they are covered with tall lemon-grass _( Andropogon schoenanthus)_ of which the oppressive perfume and coarse texture, when full grown, render it distasteful to cattle, which will only crop the delicate braird that springs after the surface has been annually burnt by the Kandyans.

Two stunted trees, alone, are seen to thrive in these extraordinary prairies, _Careya arborea_ and _Emblica officinalis_, and these only below an altitude of 4000 feet; above this, the lemon-grass is superseded by harder and more wiry species; but the earth is still the same, a mixture of decomposed quartz largely impregnated with oxide of iron, but wanting the phosphates and other salts which are essential to highly organised vegetation.[2] The extent of the patena land is enormous in Ceylon, amounting to millions of acres; and it is to be hoped that the complaints which have hitherto been made by the experimental cultivators of coffee in the Kandyan provinces may hereafter prove exaggerated, and that much that has been attributed to the poverty of the soil may eventually be traced to deficiency of skill on the part of the early planters.
[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, attempts have been made, chiefly by natives to plant coffee on patena land.