HOW TO MAKE AN ESTATE PAY, AND THE ORDER OF THE WORK.
The first step towards making a plantation pay is to eliminate all sources of loss, and the first point claiming attention relates to the advisability of abandoning all the spots on an estate which are difficult to keep up, sometimes from defects of soil, sometimes of aspect, and more often of both. At present you often find, just as you do in the case of farmers in Scotland, that planters often make money on the good land to throw much of it away on the bad, and the people who thus act simply do so from want of strength of mind; for everyone knows that it costs more to keep up inferior coffee than it does to keep up the best, and that the latter yields good and certain crops, while the former yields poor and uncertain crops. And it is equally well known that highly manured and well situated coffee on good land can always be relied on to give a paying crop, even in the very worst season, while coffee on poor land with a bad aspect is simply at the mercy of the season. And one of the oldest planters in Mysore told me that, some thirty years ago, when his land was, comparatively speaking, unexhausted, if the blossom showers were favourable he got a good crop all over the estate, but that if they were unfavourable, the best situated coffee on the best land still gave a fair crop, while the rest of the plantation produced very little. The maximum of high and safe profits, then, will be obtained where the land kept up is all good, well situated, and well manured. There are, of course, occasional spots of half an acre or so in the very best lands which must by no means be abandoned. On the contrary, they should be kept up at any cost, as they would be the means of spreading weeds into the surrounding land, and the places that should be abandoned are continuous pieces or blocks on the outside of the coffee to be kept up. I may remind the reader here that where an outside block can, as it were, be sliced off one side of the estate, an application can be made to the Government to have it measured and classed in future as land thrown out of cultivation, which is liable to a reduced rate of taxation, but the Government will make no reduction in the case of pieces of land, which are in the plantation, being thrown out of cultivation. I have said that the pieces of inferior land which may be occasionally found in the good coffee should certainly be kept up; but there are, in the case of steep lands, sometimes pieces of land at the heads of slopes, and next to the fence, where, from injudicious management, the soil has gradually worked down the hill, and in such cases a strip of the barest land near the head of the slope may with advantage be thrown out of cultivation, and the abandoned land should be thickly planted with trees, the leaves of which will be shed downwards amongst the coffee. And in planting such abandoned strips with trees an addition will be made to the value of the estate, as wood, as elsewhere pointed out, soon becomes scarce in any country that is taken up for coffee.
The next source of loss which calls for observation is that arising from the system of giving advances to labourers and to maistries—the name for a class of men who take large sums to advance to coolies, and are paid a commission on the number they bring in. The planters have lost large sums from this pernicious and troublesome system, and in the remarks previously made on planters' grievances, the reader will find allusions to the existing legislation on the subject, and the need for fresh legislation to grapple with the evils arising out of giving advances for labour. Sometimes the coolies die, and the money is lost altogether; sometimes, and not unfrequently, they abscond, and in the latter case it is such a difficult matter to trace them that the planter simply resigns himself to the loss of the money. Then as regards money advanced to maistries to bring coolies, somewhat similar difficulties occur. The maistry may die, he may abscond, and sometimes he advances to coolies who decamp and take advances from another planter or his maistry. In short, whether the planter advances directly to coolies, or to maistries to bring coolies, he finds himself involved in a mixture of losses and worries and uncertainty as to getting through his various works at the proper time.
Now nearly every human system is calculated to serve some purpose, and arises out of a greater or lesser degree of necessity. But it sometimes happens that the original causes for the system have either disappeared or very largely vanished, and that the system goes on by the force of custom—very strong in all countries, and especially so in the East. And thus it is with the advance system. When labour was as low as 2 rupees 4 annas a month (which was the rate I paid at first), it was quite impossible that a man could, within any reasonable time, save enough money to pay the expenses of a marriage; thus borrowing became a necessity, and the labourer therefore mortgaged his future labour, the sole security he had to offer. The lender was, of course, always a man who wanted work done, and by lending the required money obtained a certain command over the labourer. In the early days of planting the local labourers were always in debt to some native employer, and when they wanted to come to a European plantation the owner of it had to pay off the sum owed by the labourers, and when these labourers' sons wanted to marry it was customary to advance enough for the purpose, and sums of from 20 to 40 rupees a head were thus advanced, and, in the end, many thousands of rupees were thus lent to the labourers, and led to the losses I have described. But in these days, when labour has risen to 7 rupees a month, and the labourer can live on about 2 rupees a month, he can save in a single year nearly enough for his marriage, and therefore the old necessity for his getting into debt no longer exists, and some years ago I began to give up making advances for marriages, and find that I am still well supplied with local labour; and I feel sure that if other planters would only follow my example, the advance system would gradually be reduced within small limits, and thus one great source of loss on a plantation would be either abolished or reduced to a minimum.
But besides the advances made directly to local labourers by the planter, there are the advances made by him to maistries to bring in coolies from a distance. In former days the sums advanced were very small, and amounted to little more than a retaining fee of a few rupees a head. But from the competition for labour, or from planters weakly yielding to the demands made on them, the sums so advanced gradually rose to as much as ten rupees ahead, and, of course, the risks of the planter increased in proportion. Now this, of course, is a state of things very difficult to contend against, but I see no reason why some attempt might not be made to reduce these advances to about one-half of their present amount; and I feel sure that if the planters would only agree amongst themselves not to advance more than five rupees a head, they would obtain as many coolies as they do now.
I may remark, finally, that the evils connected with this system, and the great temptation to fraud held out by it, certainly call for the legislation which I have elsewhere alluded to when treating of planters' grievances.
The losses arising from not closely supervising the people employed in minor works; from not having tools sharpened overnight; and from delay in setting the people to work, I do not touch on here, as I have alluded to them in my hints to managers: and the mention of tools reminds me that much loss is often incurred from their careless use, and from neglect in seeing after them, the result of which, of course, is that they are often lost or stolen. Then losses often occur from want of attention to the order in which the various works should be carried out, and which should be influenced by the aspect and the kinds of soil on the plantation. Even if all the work of the plantation could be finished with ease and certainty, it is important to observe the proper order, as to do so is most beneficial to the coffee, and then it should be considered that, should labour from some accident run short, it will at least be certain that the most important parts of the plantation will have been attended to.
Removing moss or rough bark and cleaning the trees should be begun on all northern aspects. Then attend to the low-lying eastern aspects which have the sun off them all the afternoon. Do next the north-western aspects, then the southern, and lastly the due western and south-western aspects, which are so much exposed to the sun that the trees there have little moss on them. The mossing party, it is hardly necessary to mention, should follow the pruners.
Pruning should be begun in the most luxuriantly wooded part of the estate first, and the same order as to aspect should be followed as when removing moss, as it is important to let light as soon as possible into the trees which are on the darkest aspect, and this order will, of course, suit the mossing party, which is, as I have said, always to follow the pruners.
Shade should be thinned in the same order as to aspect as that laid down for the removal of moss, and as soon after crop as possible. The shade cutters should precede the pruners, as, after pruning, the coffee is of course more liable to be injured by falling branches.
Dig all the hottest aspects first, as the soil on these hardens soonest and more severely. Begin with the southern and south-western aspects, then dig the western aspects, then the eastern, and lastly the northern aspects. When all the soil is of much the same degree of stiffness, this order should be followed, but the rule may require to be modified on some estates, where the soil may be of loose character on a southern slope, and of stiffer character on another aspect, in which case the stiff soil aspect should be dug first.
Removing parasites should be done immediately after crop, and at the same time as removing shade, or at any rate before pruning, as the branches with the parasites on them would otherwise injure the coffee. It is important to remove these parasites before they seed, which is about the beginning of the rains.
Young jack fruit removal should be begun about the last week in February. Do not remove the fruit when very small, as the tree will in that case at once blossom again, and the work will then have to be repeated.
Fences should all be in order, and every gap filled up by the time the rice harvest is over, when the natives either never herd their cattle at all, or so carelessly that they are liable to be frequently in the plantation.
As regards weeding, wherever an estate is liable to rot, all the places that are most liable to it should be weeded first, as it is very important to keep the ground quite clean, so that there may be a complete circulation of air across it. Should it be found that any part of an estate is more liable to leaf disease than other parts, then the weeding should be carried out first on the portion of the estate most liable to the disease.