But besides all the previously mentioned points, there are the labour facilities, the water supply, and lastly, but by no means leastly, the concentration of all the points of most importance in one central point to be taken into consideration. It often happens on estates that the nursery is in one place, the pulping-house half a mile from that, and the bungalow half a mile from either. But is it not obvious that an estate is more valuable when the bungalow, drying-ground, pulper, and nursery are all within a stone's throw of each other?
Lastly, we come to the most difficult question of all. How many years' purchase is a coffee property worth? To this question I can give no answer at all, nor is it likely that any answer can ever be given till all the facts connected with the industry become widely known. And of all these determining facts, the execution of the projected railway line through the southern coffee district to Mangalore will certainly be the most important. This line, in fact (which will probably be opened in three years' time), will alter the entire position of coffee, as it will not only provide for the carriage of coffee to the coast and the importation of manure, but will bring the planters within ready touch of the finest sanatorium in the world—the Nilgiri Hills.
[58] My friend Mr. Graham Anderson presented to the Durbar, at the meeting of the Representative Assembly in 1892, an interesting memorandum on rainfall in Mysore, and the influence of trees on the condition of climate, and in this he has given a return of the rainfall for a section of the Manjarabad Talook, stretching inland from the crest of the Ghauts to about the termination of the forest tract—a parallelogram of fifteen miles in length from west to east, and about four miles from north to south. This section shows, from April to end of August, a rainfall of 291.53 inches on the extreme west, as compared with 44.21 inches on the extreme east. But it is remarkable that this variation of no less than 247.32 inches occurred on the northern side of the tract, the variation on the southern side being only from 232.46 inches to 72.42 inches, or a difference of only 160.04 inches. This shows an extraordinary, and at present unaccountable, deflecting of the South-West Monsoon current. Mr. Anderson remarks that, though in heavy weather and with favourable winds, the Monsoon rain is often carried to a considerable distance to the east of the termination of the forest tract, it is of common occurrence to find an almost total cessation of continuous rain a few miles beyond the forest zone.
In the memorandum in question Mr. Anderson also remarks on the well known and interesting fact that the clearing away of certain descriptions of trees, and the substitution of others improves the supply of water in the springs. But the whole memorandum is both interesting and practical, and its presentation at the meeting of the Representative Assembly is an additional illustration of the value of that institution in pressing matters of importance on the attention of the Government. The returns of the rainfall were obtained from various planters on the section of country investigated by Mr. Anderson.
CHAPTER XVI.
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.