When, as in former times in Coorg, the planters used no shade, many good arguments existed in favour of making very large reserves of forest land in order to prevent denudation, and its injurious effects on climate, and on the water supply of the rivers and the country generally. But when you merely replace the underwood of the forest with an underwood of coffee which completely covers the ground, and again shield this from drying winds and the burning sun by a complete covering of trees, either those of the original forest or others planted to take their place, the case is entirely altered, and from the coffee land thus shaded there is no more loss of water and soil (perhaps not so much loss of water, as great pains are taken to avert wash) than there was in the original forest, and the climatic and conservative effects of forests are therefore entirely undisturbed. Wherever, then, lands exist which are suitable for coffee planting under shade, they should certainly, in the interests of the country generally, and especially of the rapidly increasing population, be taken up for coffee, and the State forests be confined to those tracts which, from over heavy rainfall, or other causes, are unsuitable for coffee planting.
Other products, and especially cinchona, have received a fair amount of attention in Coorg, and the land on the Ghauts to the westward, where, as we have seen, the coffee plantations have been abandoned, proved to be well suited for the production of the commoner kinds of bark, and large extents of abandoned or semi-abandoned lands were planted with cinchonas. But when the prices of bark fell (whoever takes to growing a drug will soon realize the meaning of the phrase "a drug in the market"), the cultivation was no longer worthy of attention, and has practically died out. Ceara rubber also met with the same fate.
I may here mention that Messrs. Matheson and Co., who held no less than 7,000 out of the 20,000 acres occupied by Europeans in the Bamboo district, went to great expense in introducing coffee seed from Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, with the view of ascertaining whether coffee grown from the seed thus imported would be less susceptible to attacks of leaf disease. But, though the plants raised from these seeds are doing exceedingly well, it was found that they were also liable to be attacked by leaf disease, often before they were even out of the nursery, and in this respect proved to be neither better nor worse than the Coorg variety of coffee. A clearing of fifty acres has been entirely planted with coffee raised from Blue Mountain seed, but there is nothing in the appearance of the trees to show that they are not indigenous to the country.
Liberian coffee has been tried experimentally in several parts of Coorg, but I cannot learn that any results have been obtained which would tend to encourage its adoption as a substitute for the variety at present grown.
It is estimated that the Coorg planters employ at least 30,000 Mysore labourers in addition to local labourers and those from the Madras Presidency, and of the 30,000 in question Messrs. Matheson and Co. employ no less than about 5,000 for six to eight months of the year. The 30,000 coolies, with their maistries, draw from 12 to 15 lakhs of rupees per annum (from £120,000 to £150,000, estimating the rupee at par, and for the purposes of a labourer it goes nearly as far in India as when it was so) in wages, very nearly the whole of which eventually reaches Mysore either in payment for grain or as a surplus income which the labourers annually take with them when they return to their homes in Mysore. And as this capital is largely employed in developing the agricultural resources of the Mysore State, it is evident that anything that its Government could do—in the way of railway extension or otherwise—that would stimulate the employment of labour in Coorg would be of great advantage to the finances of Mysore. It is extremely interesting to follow the labour-spent capital of the planters of Coorg to its ultimate destination—to the western coast, to various parts of the Madras Presidency, and far away into the interior of Mysore, and to observe its effects on the country and its financial results. I am not in a position to say exactly what should be done in the way of railways for Coorg, but I trust I have sufficiently shown that the British and Mysore Governments are equally interested in doing all they can, in the way of railway communication and new and improved roads, to develop and encourage the planting resources of Coorg.
The last visit I paid to Coorg was in October, 1891, immediately after the breaking up of the Representative Assembly at Mysore, a full account of which I have given in a previous chapter. I left Mysore on the morning of Tuesday, October 20th, and on the first day drove to Hunsur, a town of between four and five thousand inhabitants, which lies twenty-eight miles to the west of Mysore city. At this place are the extensive coffee works and manure preparing establishment of Messrs. Matheson and Co., by whose manager I was most hospitably and agreeably entertained. Rather an interesting incident in connection with a panther had once occurred at his house, and as this illustrates what I have previously mentioned as to the (to man) innocuous character of this animal, it may not be uninteresting to give an account of what occurred. The circumstances were these.
One night my hostess, some time after retiring to rest, heard a noise in the open veranda which runs round the side of the bungalow just outside her bedroom. She got up, and, taking a lamp in her hand, went round a corner of the building in the direction of the noise, and just as she turned the corner in question there fell upon her astonished vision the spectacle of a panther, which at the moment was busily engaged in devouring the family cat. When the panther saw the lady he tried to make off along the veranda (which at that point was shut in at the side by a trellis-work), but at the moment of his flight the cook, who had also heard the noise, appeared at the opposite end of the veranda with a lamp in his hand. The panther then turned back in the direction of the lady, who stood spell-bound with the lamp in her hand, and as the cook, apparently equally spell-bound, remained stationary with his lamp, the panther, being thus as it were between two fires, lay down under a table which was placed against the wall of the veranda. At last he got up, made a move in the direction of the cook, and then changing his mind, rushed past the lady, and thus made his escape. Panthers seem to be numerous about Hunsur, and I heard another interesting story of their boldness, which I have not space to give, from a neighbour of my host.
After staying for a day at Hunsur, I drove, on October 22nd, to Titimutty, a small village on the frontier of Coorg, where I was met by Mr. Rose, of Hill Grove Estate, who drove me to his plantation near Polibetta, which is in the Bamboo district previously alluded to as containing about two-thirds of the European plantations in Coorg. Shortly after leaving Titimutty we drove through coffee on both sides of the road, and, though I spent four days in the district, and was constantly on the move, I was never once out of sight of coffee, as the plantations lie in a continuous block, and, as they are all thoroughly shaded, sometimes by the original forest trees, and sometimes by trees planted for shade, the general effect is that you are travelling through a forest of which coffee is the underwood—a forest lying on gently undulating ground from which nothing can be seen of the surrounding country. As the bungalows of the planters are of course surrounded by coffee and shade trees, they have necessarily an extremely shut-in appearance. But this rather triste effect might be obviated (and I have with good effect obviated it in the case of a bungalow which lies in the centre of an estate of my own in Mysore) by cutting vistas here and there through the shade trees through which peeps may be had of distant hills. This may seem to be a point of little practical value, but, as I have shown in a previous chapter, the amenities of an estate are of value, and are likely to become more so when the desirable nature of shade coffee property is more widely known. The bungalows in the Bamboo district are very comfortable, most of them having tennis grounds, and if the vistas I have suggested were cut out, their attractiveness would be much enhanced. But if the Bamboo district has not the scenic advantages of plantations in other parts of Coorg and in Mysore, these are much compensated for by the close proximity of one plantation to another, and I was told that at certain seasons there was generally a well-attended lawn tennis party on every day of the week. There is besides, in the centre of the district, a comfortable club where balls and dances are occasionally given. In short, the Bamboo district has features of its own which make it entirely different from any planting district in India. From being so much shut in, it might, at first sight, be supposed to be not a very healthy district, but I heard no complaints on that score, nor, from the appearance of the planters, would it have occurred to me that the district was at all unhealthy. On the evening of my arrival there was a dinner-party, at which four ladies were present, and later on there was music and singing, and all the accompaniments of a pleasant social life. So much do coffee districts vary in India, that the party was to me a startling surprise, which the reader may easily understand when I mention that, after leaving the most northerly plantation in Coorg and entering my district of Manjarabad, there is only one resident lady to be found there, and it is not till you reach the northern district of Mysore, some sixty miles further, that ladies, in the plural, again commence, though even there they do not exist to a very serious extent.
On the afternoon of the day of my arrival I walked round my host's estate, which carried an excellent crop, and also visited a neighbouring property. On the following morning I drove to the Dubarri estate, and walked round part of it, and in the afternoon visited the club—a comfortable, and in every respect suitable, building which, as I mentioned, is occasionally used for dances. I also visited the co-operative store, which contained a large supply of various articles. The church, which was close to the club, had been recently built, at a cost of 5,000 rupees, but, when I saw it, the interior was not quite finished. I may mention that in the Bamboo district there is a resident doctor who is employed by the various estates. Later on in the afternoon I rode from the club with Mr. William Davies to the Mattada Kadu estate (Messrs. Matheson and Co.'s property), of which he is manager, and rode through coffee all the way to the bungalow. I was most kindly entertained by Mr. Davies, who had a party of the neighbouring planters to meet me at dinner, after which we had much talk on the subject in which we were all mutually interested. On the following morning I awoke early, and was rather surprised, shortly after daylight, to hear the names of the coolies called over from the check-roll, as, though early hours were kept in the old days in Mysore, we have now become considerably later, owing, I surmise, to feeling that in these labour-competing days we are not as completely master as we once were. After a small breakfast I rode through the estate, guided by Mr. Davies, who was accompanied by two of his guests of the night before, and we then passed into the Nullagottay estate (all Messrs. Matheson's), after which we entered into Whust Nullagottay, and went to the bungalow from which (there is always an exception) there is a fine view of the Brahmagiri Hills. After a very short stay we again mounted, and presently passed into the Whoshully estate, and finally arrived, after riding through that property, at about midday at Mr. Robinson's bungalow, where we had breakfast. Mr. Rose came over in the afternoon, and we rode home to Hill Grove through Messrs. Matheson's estate which had been bought from Mr. Minchin, besides visiting the Hope estate. I thus rode through coffee for nearly the entire day. On the following day I went over another adjacent property, and on the day after, Monday, October 26th, started for Mercara, the capital of Coorg. I drove by way of Siddapur, paid a short visit to Cannon Kadu estate, and arrived at Abiel, Mr. Martin's estate, at about midday, rode round his estate in the afternoon, and then drove on to Mr. E. Meynell's charming home—the Retreat—which is about a mile from the town of Mercara.
I was particularly struck with the arrangements of this house, as it was a thoroughly English-looking home in every respect, and I only wish I could give a plan of it as a model for a residence in the hill and planting districts of India. The front veranda was inclosed with glass, and lined with flowers in pots, and from the centre of this projected a conservatory, at the end of which was the front door. You thus, after driving up to the house, walked through a conservatory into the inclosed veranda, and this not only gave a very pretty effect, but was practically useful by keeping carriages, with their attendant dust and disagreeables, at a sufficient distance from the veranda. My hostess very kindly permitted me to see the kitchen arrangements. These, as well as the storerooms, were in a wing projecting from the back of the bungalow. The kitchen, which consisted of a separate room, with a single door, was furnished with a Wilson range, and there was no door between the kitchen and the scullery. The latter was at the outside edge of the wing, and was entered by its own door—an arrangement, by the way, that might be practised with advantage in this country, as a connecting door is liable to admit smells from the scullery into the kitchen. The reader will, I trust, excuse the mention of these apparently trivial matters, but as I strongly suspect that much of the ill-health in India is due to the dirt and horrors of the Indian cook-room, which is usually at a little distance from the bungalow, and turned into a general lounge for the servants, I think it well to show that, with a little contrivance and attention, as great a degree of order and cleanliness may exist in India as in any other portion of the globe.