On the following day I called on Mr. Mann, son of one of the pioneer planters of 1855, and inspected an interesting coffee garden of four acres which is close to his bungalow in Mercara. Some of the coffee trees were planted thirty and others forty years ago, and they have given for many years fifteen hundredweight an acre on the average, and though many of the trees were evidently suffering from the effects of overbearing, there seemed no reason why they should not continue to bear good crops for an indefinite period of time. Estimating the value of the coffee at 80s. a hundredweight, the produce of an acre would be worth £60, of 100 acres £6,000, and allowing one-half for expenses—a very liberal estimate—there would be a clear income of £3,000 a year from 100 acres of such coffee. As 100 acres of land so situated—it was flat, lay in a hollow, and was well sheltered—could not be obtained, it might seem that an account of this garden could be of no practical value. But the garden in question raises one very important point in the mind, and that is whether it would not be better to abandon all inferior soils and situations on an estate, and concentrate all the labour and manurial resources on a more limited area, every operation on which could be carried out exactly at the right moment. This is a highly important question which I state here for the consideration of planters.
After spending two pleasant days at the Retreat, I bade my kind host and hostess good-bye (I have thanked Mr. Meynell, who I may mention represents Messrs. Matheson's large interests in Coorg, in the preface for the valuable information he subsequently sent me as regards planting in Coorg), and went on my way towards my home in Mysore, and stayed first at the Hallery estate, which is about six miles from Mercara, and is the property of my friend Mr. Mangles. The approach to the bungalow through the coffee is very pretty; the building stands at the head of a slope, and commands a fine and extensive view of the country and the distant hills. The amenities here had been well attended to: below the front of the bungalow terraces edged with balustrades had been cut, and formed into flower gardens, and I was glad to see that, in parts of the plantation, from which good views could be had, there were seats. I may observe here that there is a great want in plantations of seats, which are now the more needed as all logs in the old plantations have of course disappeared. Near the bungalow is an excellent stable, well paved, and quite in English style. On the following morning I wont with Mr. Sprott, who is in charge of Mr. Mangles's estate, to visit his Santigherry property, some seven miles distant, and on the way there went on the left of the road through a plantation belonging to Messrs. Macpherson and Ainslie. After this we re-entered the main road, passed the village of Santikoopa, and then entered and went round the estate we had come to visit. On the way home we diverged to the left and went through Mr. Murray Ainslie's estate, and round by an estate owned by Mr. Campbell, and finally arrived at Hallery at about half-past twelve. In the afternoon I went round part of the estate, which I had already seen something of on the day of my arrival.
Early the following morning, after bidding good-bye to the host and hostess who had so kindly entertained me, I started on my journey northwards, and after a troublesome and trying drive (for my horses), in which two rivers had to be crossed by ferry boats, and much deep unmetalled road struggled through, I arrived at 12.30 at Coovercolley—another estate of Mr. Mangles's—where I was kindly entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Trelawney (Mr. Trelawney manages this fine property). The bungalow here is particularly comfortable, and had the great advantage of a very wide open veranda. On the right of the approach to the bungalow was a neatly trimmed shoe flower hedge, which had a very pretty effect, and, as at Hallery, terraces had been cut in front for a flower garden. From the front of the bungalow there is an extensive view of much of the Coorg country, and I was particularly struck by its continuous jungly character, and with its great contrast to the Mysore country to the north, which is not so much a jungly country, as an open grass country studded with occasional wood, and park-like groups of trees. On the afternoon of my arrival I rode round part of this fine estate, and inspected other parts of it on the following morning and evening. On the next morning I started at a quarter to six, and after driving about twenty-four miles, crossed the frontier, and entered Manjarabad—the southernmost coffee district of Mysore. The northernmost part of Coorg consists of a long tongue of land which projects into Mysore, and the scenery, in its beautiful, open, and park-like character, naturally resembles that of Manjarabad.
On my visit to Coorg I look back with pleasure. It was, indeed, extremely enjoyable and instructive, and I cannot help regretting the fact that, owing to the nature of their duties, planters are obliged to remain so continuously at home; and then, of course, when they can get away, they naturally go for change of air and scene anywhere out of the coffee districts. The result of this is that the planters of the north of Mysore see little of those in the south, and that neither have any intercourse with Coorg, and that, in consequence, much valuable interchange of views and experiences that might otherwise take place cannot now do so. Had such intercourse existed, many of the mistakes made in Coorg as regards shade would probably have been avoided, and much loss of money averted.
The reader will have noticed that I have hitherto made no observations on the coffee I saw in Coorg, my reason for not doing so being that I thought they might be more conveniently reserved for the close of the chapter. I am glad that in the course of my observations I shall have much to say in praise of the state of coffee in Coorg, and if I should seem to be a little free in my remarks as to the management of shade, I trust that my Coorg readers will bear in mind that my experience of trees planted as shade to supply the place of original forest trees removed is the oldest in India, and stretches back to the year 1857, and that it requires a very long time, as they will see by consulting the chapter on shade, before all the points connected with shade trees can be proved with certainty. That mistakes as regards shade should have been made in Coorg, where shade experience is comparatively recent, is not at all surprising; in former times numerous mistakes were made in Mysore, and have only been rectified by long experience and observation.
My general impression on going through the Bamboo district of Coorg was that it contains a certain proportion of land of poor character (and this can be said of most coffee districts) which should never have been opened, but that there are many excellent and valuable estates, though it was plain to me that, from the more weakly, or perhaps I should rather say less robust, character of the shoots, and the appearance of the soil, it had, as a rule, much less growing power in it, and would consequently require more manure, than the deep and heavier soils of Mysore. But these soils in the Bamboo district, though lighter in character, are of course (and this is a fact of no small importance) more easily worked than those of Mysore. The next point that attracted my attention was the shade, and of the numerous estates that I saw in the Bamboo district there were only two that at all came up to my idea of what a well shaded property ought to be. I could see little signs of the shade being varied in kind and quantity to suit the various aspects, and many trees were preserved which were merely throwing shadow, not on to the coffee, but on to adjacent trees. Then I found that in one excellent piece of young coffee the shade had been planted in lines running from east to west, instead of being closely planted in lines from north to south (vide chapter on shade). The shade, too, generally speaking, was far too largely composed of one kind of tree,—the Attí-mara (Ficus glomerata)—and finally this tree, the defects of which I have remarked upon in my chapter on shade, was badly managed by being trimmed up to a considerable height above the ground. The result of this was that on land on which there was an enormous number of trees there was far too little shade, and a forester fresh from England would never have imagined that the planters had intended to grow umbrageous trees for the double purpose of lowering the temperature of the plantation and sheltering the coffee from sun and parching winds, but would have supposed that they were engaged in growing timber for sale. I saw land which, I feel sure, had at least three times the number of trees that would have been sufficient to shade it fully, had they been properly treated. Such a number of trees throw out, of course, a corresponding number of large roots, and one planter told me that in some instances coffee was being killed by the masses of Attí root in the land. As regards shade, then, there is much room for improvement in Coorg, and especial attention should be paid to this in the Bamboo district which has suffered so much from Borer. This pest, we know, thrives best under warm and dry conditions, and it is therefore of great importance that the kinds of shade most recommended in my chapter on shade should be freely planted, and other kinds gradually removed.
There was a very good crop on the trees when I passed through Coorg—one that, when picked, quite exceeded the expectations of the planters—and I saw two estates which had at once a good crop on the trees, leaves of good, well-fed looking colour, and a show of wood giving promise of an equally good crop for the following year; and it says well for cultivation in Coorg that any estate could show this, for the tendency of coffee, as of most fruit trees, is to give heavy and light crops alternately. As it is important to know the manures that were used to produce such results, I may mention that on one of these estates 6 cwt. of castor cake and 3 cwt. of bones had been applied the previous year, and for the four preceding years 2 cwt. of castor cake and 1 cwt. of bone had been used, but, in the opinion of the manager, the latter application had proved too small. On the other estate one-third of a bushel of cattle manure per tree, and from 7 cwt. to 10 cwt. of bones had been applied once in three years, and composts also had been used to a considerable extent. These were formed first of a layer of vegetable rubbish, then fresh pulp and lime, and lastly a layer of soil. The estate last referred to, on which the cattle manure, bones and compost had been used, belongs to Mr. Mangles—his Coovercolley estate—and is certainly the finest I ever saw, if we take into consideration the state of the soil, the colour of the foliage, and the evident prospect of continuously good crops. So well fed, indeed, was the land with nitrogen, that an application of nitrate of soda produced no perceptible effect on the trees. The land was probably over supplied with phosphoric acid, and an analysis of the soil would be of practical value, for if, as I have good reason to surmise, there is a very large supply of phosphoric acid in the soil, the use of bones might be suspended for some years, and a light application of lime used instead. Ten acres, at any rate, might be tried as an experiment. I was shown one piece of coffee which had been manured, when it was two years old, with cattle manure, and this piece had remained perceptibly superior ever since. On this estate 600 cattle are kept for the sake of their manure. I would suggest that the proprietor might, on say ten acres, discontinue the use of cattle manure, and, as an experiment, apply dressings of jungle top-soil instead, or the red earth alluded to in my chapter on manures, should that be available. The experiment might be valuable to the proprietor and to planters in general. Cattle manure is very expensive, and when 12 to 14 tons per acre—some fairly well rotted and some slightly so—were used in Coorg on one estate the cost was 72 rupees an acre, including cost of application.
In bringing these brief remarks to a close, I may observe that I formed a very high opinion of coffee in Coorg, and I feel confident that if the shade were remodelled on the system recommended in my chapter on that subject, the losses from Borer and leaf disease would be largely diminished, and a great general improvement in the coffee take place. We have experienced such results from improved shade in Mysore, and there can be no doubt that similar results will follow in Coorg. In remodelling the shade system, all light and dry soils should be first attended to and planted up with trees which give an ample and cool shade. The treatment of other parts of plantations may be postponed.
As regards the profits that may reasonably be expected from well managed and well situated estates in Coorg, I am happy to say that I have obtained from a friend the returns from his estates for the last ten years, and as his properties are of large extent, the return may be regarded as a very reliable one, more especially as the prices for three years of the period were very low. The average yield per acre was 4 cwt. 1 qr. 7 lbs.; the expenses, £9 4s. 2d., and the profits per acre £7 8s. 6d.
I only wish that, in conclusion, I could give as favourable an account of the prospects of sport in Coorg as I can of its coffee. Twenty-five years ago there was good big game shooting, but the absence of game laws, and the indiscriminate destruction of does, fawns, and cow bisons by the natives, at every season of the year, have changed all that, and it is with a melancholy smile that one reads in the "Coorg Gazetteer" that the Coorgs are such ardent sportsmen that they have hardly left a head of game in the country. But the first sign of advanced civilization—the intelligent preservation of wild animals—has begun, or will shortly be begun, in the enlightened state of Mysore, and I trust that its good example may soon be followed in Coorg, and all parts of India. With the aid of preservation game will soon increase in the more remote forests into which it has been driven back, and from thence spread into other parts of the country.