CHAPTER V.
Real Cost of Land--Want of Communication--Coffee-planting--Comparison between French and English Settlers--Landslips--Forest-clearing--Manuring--The Coffee Bug--Rats--Fatted Stock--Suggestions for Sheep-farming--Attack of a Leopard--Leopards and Chetahs--Boy Devoured--Traps--Musk Cats and the Mongoose--Vermin of Ceylon.
What is the government price of land in Ceylon?
and what is the real cost of the land?
These are two questions which should be considered separately, and with grave attention by the intending settler or capitalist.
The upset price of government land is twenty shillings per acre; thus, the inexperienced purchaser is very apt to be led away by the apparently low sum per acre into a purchase of great extent.

The question of the real cost will then be solved at his expense.

There are few colonies belonging to Great Britain where the government price of land is so high, compared to the value of the natural productions of the soil.
The staple commodity of Ceylon being coffee, I will assume that a purchase is concluded with the government for one thousand acres of land, at the upset price of twenty shillings per acre.

What has the purchaser obtained for this sum?
One thousand acres of dense forest, to which there is no road.

The one thousand pounds passes into the government chest, and the purchaser is no longer thought of; he is left to shift for himself and to make the most of his bad bargain.
He is, therefore, in this position: He has parted with one thousand pounds for a similar number of acres of land, which will not yield him one penny in any shape until he has cleared it from forest.