There are, in all, at present in Coorg 130 European estates, with a total area of 32,323 acres (of which 20,000 are in the Bamboo district), and 6,207 native estates and gardens, aggregating in all 70,669 acres. The average production of coffee from all these sources is estimated by competent authorities at from 4,000 to 5,000 tons of coffee per annum, or of a probable annual value of from £250,000 to £300,000. The yield from a well cultivated estate averages from 3 to 4 cwt. of clean coffee per acre. Exceptional properties there are, of course, which give higher returns than this, and some could be quoted which give 6 to 7 cwt. on the average, while sensational figures might be quoted as regards some remarkable estates. But to give an account of such exceptional estates might convey a misleading idea of the general return to be obtained from coffee in Coorg, though I think it well to allude to the fact that better returns than those first mentioned can be obtained, and have been obtained, as it is always of value to know what particular pieces of land can do under the most favourable circumstances, as this opens up the important question as to whether it would not pay better to confine cultivation on an estate to a narrow area of the best soils and situations on it—a subject to which I shall more particularly refer later on in this chapter.
In the case of well cultivated estates, an expenditure of eighty rupees per acre is incurred on superintendence and field labour, and fifty rupees an acre on manures and their application, but in many European, and most native estates, a total expenditure for superintendence, labour and manures of about eighty rupees only is incurred, and the results obtained are, of course, proportionately smaller. The native gardens and plantations are, as a rule, worked on the principle of taking everything that can be got out of the land, and putting nothing into it. Were these worked on European principles, it is hardly necessary to say that the export of coffee from Coorg would be largely increased.
Cattle manure, bones, oil-cake and fish constitute the manures mainly used in Coorg. The first is universally recognized as being the most valuable for coffee, but the supply available in the Bamboo district (which contains, I may remind the reader, 20,000 out of the 32,323 acres under cultivation by Europeans), where grazing is scarce, is so small that planters have to depend to a great extent on the three last-named manures. Messrs. Matheson & Co., the owners of about 7,000 acres of coffee in Coorg, kept for some years in their employ an analytical chemist,[[49]] whose time was devoted to the analysis of soil, and the making of experiments on their estates, with the view of ascertaining what was best adapted for maintaining and improving their fertility. Salts of various kinds were experimented with, but, though the results from them were generally favourable, they were found to be too rapidly soluble for a climate so subject to heavy falls of rain. In the end, after many experiments, he came to the conclusion that the four above-mentioned manures were the best for the climate, and that the proportion applied should vary with the condition of the coffee. To illustrate this point I may add that in Coorg, bones and oil-cake are usually applied in the proportion of two of the latter to one of the former. If, however, a field has suffered badly from leaf disease (which destroys many of the leaves), or is not making wood as rapidly as it ought, it is customary to apply a larger proportion of oil-cake, or in some cases, to put down that manure without adding any bones. On the other hand, if there is a superabundance of wood, and it is desirable to throw the whole energies of the tree into the production of berries, then the proportion of bone manure is increased and that of oil-cake diminished.
In former times all manures were applied immediately after the crop was picked, and on estates where labour is scarce, or comes in late in the season, this system is still carried on. But from results actually obtained on estates in Coorg, it has now been proved that it is more advantageous to apply part of the manure immediately after crop, in order to strengthen the tree when the blossom showers fall (which they usually do in March and April), and to aid it in perfecting and setting the blossom, and a second portion after the heavy monsoon rains are over, in order to assist the tree in growing fresh wood, and in maturing the crop. The bones, oil-cake, and fish are usually mixed with burnt earth—a cubic yard to every five cwt. of the manure—and then scattered on the surface of the land around the stems of the trees, and forked in. The burnt earth, or indeed almost any good earth, makes an admirable addition to bones, oil-cake, and fish, for, though the first two, or the last two, furnish complete manure for coffee, they of course cannot ameliorate the physical condition of the soil, which, as I have fully shown in the chapter on manures, is often of more importance than its strictly speaking chemical condition. The burnt earth, in short, takes the place of cattle manure as a physical agent, and, for that purpose, I think that the soil, is to be preferred to cattle manure, as the former would certainly be cheaper and more lasting in its effects in keeping the soil in a loose and easily workable condition. On the other hand, it must be considered that cattle manure would be more moisture-holding than ordinary earth, though not more so than jungle top-soil, and when first applied, would be perhaps more opening to the land, than burnt or ordinary earth, but if the red earth (Kemmannu), to which I have alluded in my chapter on manures, can be obtained, that, I know from experience, would be more cooling, and moisture-absorbing than cattle manure.
I now turn to a point of great general interest, and one which furnishes another illustration of what I dwelt upon at some length in my introductory chapter, the wide-spreading value arising from the introduction into India of English capital which, as I have shown, develops the agricultural resources of the country in ever-widening circles. At first in Coorg the adjacent province of Mysore was the only source of labour supply, but the increased prosperity of the labourer consequent upon ample employment and enhanced rates of wages, enabled him to take up land for the cultivation of cereal crops in the neighbourhood of his own village, and hence the supply of labour declined, those who came to work in the plantations came later in the season, and altogether the labour supply from Mysore became more uncertain every year. Planters consequently, as they had in Mysore itself, had to go further afield, and now draw labour to a large extent from the Madras Presidency, the labourers from which in turn, will now have the means of developing the agricultural resources of their native villages. This is a point to which the attention of the Government cannot be too often drawn with the view of encouraging the opening up, by it, of every means of stimulating the employment of labour in India.
Coorg is now fairly well off for labour, and the old labour difficulties which used to be experienced have to a great extent disappeared. The average cost of Mysore labour—men, women, and children, and including the commission of the Maistries (as the men who collect and bring the labourers to the estates are called), is from 3 annas 6 pie to 4 annas a day (or say 5d. to 6d. a day, calculating the rupee at par, or 2s.). In quite recent times the maistries, who obtained large sums from the planters to make advances to the coolies, sometimes absconded with the money and thereby great losses ensued. But a better class of maistries have arisen, and Messrs. Matheson and Co. have now, with the aid of their permanent European labour agent, established a system of private registration by which the antecedents, status, and resources of the maistries are duly recorded. And though the services of doubtful maistries cannot as yet be altogether dispensed with, a preference is of course given to those of well established reputation, and the class of maistries generally is beginning to understand and appreciate the system of registration, which has every prospect of becoming general, and will, I need hardly add, be of great advantage to planters. But if maistries sometimes swindle their employers, the former are often liable to be swindled by the coolies to whom the advances have been made, and until a system of compulsory Government registration of advances to coolies is introduced, as recommended in one of my chapters on coffee planting in Mysore, it will be impossible to put our peculiar system of giving advances to coolies on a reasonably safe footing.
The plantations in Coorg have suffered, and still suffer considerably from leaf disease and Borer, to both of which I have, for practical purposes, sufficiently alluded in the chapter on the diseases of coffee. The effects of the former, though entailing much injury on coffee in Coorg, have not been so fatal as in Ceylon, as the long stretches of dry weather, often of four or five months' duration, seem to kill off large numbers of the spores, and so mitigate the damage arising from the disease. Messrs. Matheson and Co., at the instance of the chemist previously mentioned, sent out Strawsoniser spray engines for the purpose of treating afflicted trees with various solutions, but, though good effects were noticeable on individual trees, it was found that to treat whole estates in this way was quite impracticable, both from the cost and the immense amount of labour that would be required, and this fatal obstacle to the use of such remedies has been amply proved in Ceylon. But in Coorg the Borer is much more to be dreaded than leaf disease, and its ravages are such that even on the best estates fully twenty-five per cent.[[50]] of the acreage is under supplies (i.e., young plants to take the place of the old ones which have died), and the late Mr. Pringle—the chemist—was of opinion that the loss of crop from Borer was not less than 2 cwt. per acre per annum. Before the introduction of shade the total extermination of an estate was far from uncommon, the estate in the Bamboo district opened by Rev. H. A. Kaundinya in 1857 being the first to perish, and though, as we have seen, owing to the introduction of shade, the Borer has been largely brought into subjection, considerable damage still takes place from it. Neither trouble nor expense has been spared in order to find an antidote to this pest. Rubbing the stems with the view of destroying the eggs of the insect, and applying thereto chemical ingredients have both been tried, but with very limited results. The late Mr. Pringle's antidote consisted of the application of two washes of alkali vat waste, costing five rupees an acre each, but, when carried into practice, the results were far from what he anticipated. Taking out the bored trees and burning them has proved the most effectual way of dealing with the pest, and would be productive of still better results if native neighbours would adopt the same practice. But as they will not adopt this practice, their plantations become nursery grounds for the propagation of the insect. Many planters in the Bamboo district pay 1 rupee per hundred for the Borer fly, and this results in a large number being caught, but it is not supposed that any appreciable effect has been produced from this practice.
There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that the primary cause of the existence of so much Borer was owing to the planters having at first planted in the open. This must have created an enormous supply of the insect, which found a splendid breeding ground in the conditions furnished by the planters, as is evidenced by the fact of whole estates having been exterminated by it, and it will require many years of judicious shading before this insect can be reduced within comparatively harmless limits. The reader will observe that I say judicious shading, and I will more fully explain what I mean by that expression when, later on in the chapter, I give an account of my tour through Coorg in 1891, and make some observations on the proper shading of coffee.
Most of the European estates in Coorg and many of the larger native plantations are held under what are called "The Waste Land Rules," under which land is put up to auction by the State at an upset price of 2 rupees per acre (10 rupees is the upset price in Mysore), plus the value of the timber, which adds somewhat to the price. As a rule there is now considerable competition for land, and as much as 100 to 150 rupees has frequently to be paid per acre. The land so purchased is subject to no assessment up to the fourth year, but from the fourth to the ninth year 1 rupee is charged, and after that 2 rupees in perpetuity. The bulk of the land suitable for coffee has been taken up, though large extents that might be utilized are included in the State forests, and thus are not available to the public. Hence there is little room for extension, and openings for young men with capital are few and far between, so far as obtaining fresh forest is concerned, though of course opportunities occasionally occur for purchasing estates, or acquiring shares in them on various terms.
And here I would particularly call the attention of the Government to the following remarks on the reservation of land in Coorg for State forests, much of which, as we have seen, might be utilized for coffee.