Travels in Peru and India / While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.

by Sir Clements R. Markham

An export duty of four annas the maund is levied on coffee in Coorg, which, in 1861, brought in a revenue of 23,000 Rs. In that year 1,29,869 maunds were exported, 1,17,223 by native growers, and 12,645 by Europeans. This disproportion will not exist this year, as the plants on several new estates will now be in bearing for the first time. The main roads in Coorg are excellent, and one at least of the planters, if not more, has displayed great energy in connecting his estates by good roads with the main Government highways. Most of the available land, within reasonable distance of a highway, is already taken up for coffee cultivation. Labour, as is also the case in Wynaad and the Neilgherries, is chiefly procured from Mysore, the coolies coming up after their own work is done.

It will be seen by the account I have been able to give of the elevation, temperature, and of the periods of drought and moisture in this hill district, that it is not nearly so well adapted for the cultivation of chinchona-plants as Neddiwuttum, and many other localities on the Neilgherry hills. It may be compared, more appropriately, with the forests near Sispara on the Koondahs, as it is exposed to the full force of the south-west monsoon, and suffers from a long drought during the winter.

The country to the north and east of Mercara is a plateau, about 4500 feet above the sea, intersected by ravines full of trees and underwood, amongst which I observed wild orange and lime-trees, Michelias, and tree-ferns, with an undergrowth of ferns, Lobelia, Ipomæa, and Solanum. The scenery is charming, with grassy slopes, wooded glades, and here and there a secluded hut in a grove of plantains, on the edge of a small patch of rice cultivation. I also examined some of the forests down the Mangalore ghaut. The road is excellent, winding with a gentle gradient through the beautiful forest scenery past numerous coffee-plantations to their port of shipment at Mangalore. At the fourth milestone from Mercara there is a forest extending for nearly a mile, on the left of the road, at an elevation of 3800 feet above the sea. It descends from the road to the bottom of the ravine, and on the opposite side there are forest-covered heights of greater elevation. The forest contains many tall trees, not growing very close, with tree-ferns, Cinnamomum, Hymenodictyon, Melastomaceæ, a Papilionacea with a bright yellow flower, and ferns, of which I collected five kinds. The general character of the flora appeared suitable for the growth of chinchona-plants; and, though this was the driest time of the year, I found at least one small stream trickling down through the underwood. The valley runs north-west and south-east.

In this locality plants of C. succirubra would no doubt flourish, and the experiment ought certainly to be tried; though, from the low elevation, the bark would probably be thin, and would yield perhaps a small per-centage of alkaloids. These points, however, can only be ascertained by experience gained from experimental culture. I was told by Captain Eliott, the Superintendent of Coorg, that the forest in question has been applied for and refused to several coffee-planters. The land belongs to Government, but there is a devil living on it, to which the Coorgs do poojah, and the Commissioner of Mysore has, therefore, been hitherto unwilling to allow it to be occupied.

There are many other localities equally suited for the cultivation of C. succirubra and C. micrantha in Coorg; the Government will shortly establish a chinchona nursery there; and, with so many energetic and intelligent planters in the district, it will be strange if the growth of this important product is not extended and rendered profitable by private enterprise. A few rows of chinchona-plants ought to be established in the loftiest part of each coffee-clearing; and every settler should plant them, and encourage the cultivation among the natives, from motives of humanity, as well as with a view to successful commercial speculation.

We finally left Mercara before dawn, and rode for three miles down the steep ghaut leading to the lower and more extensive valleys of south-eastern Coorg, which we reached as the sun rose. It was a very pleasant ride through the beautiful hill country, with uplands covered with fine forest, and long strips of fertile valley. In the jungles we saw immense clumps of bamboo, which overshadowed the road; a leafless and thorny Erythrina with crimson flowers; and a Solanum with a small white flower by the road-side. Here and there we came to open grassy glades, whence little footpaths led through the neighbouring jungle to some secluded hut. The cultivated valleys are covered with rice, and fringed with plantain groves and Caryota urens.

The Caryota urens is a lofty palm-tree, with large leaves, and the Coorgs draw an immense quantity of toddy from it during the hot season. The pith of the trunk of old trees is a kind of sago, and is made into bread and gruel by the natives of many parts of India. Humboldt says that the form of the leaves is very singular, the singularity consisting in their being bipinnatisect, with the ultimate division having the shape of the fin and tail of a fish.[474]

We passed several hundred pack-bullocks conveying Bombay salt from the Malabar ports to the interior, and, having forded the Cauvery at a point where the bed is full of large boulders of rock, reached the village of Virarajendrapett. It consists of two clean streets, at right angles, with a missionary church and school. The mountains are here dotted with plantain-groves, and nearly every house has a small coffee-garden attached. The surrounding country is exceedingly pretty, the view being bounded by forest-covered mountains. The bungalow at Virarajendrapett is on the site of an old palace of the Rajahs, and the compound is surrounded by a high wall, with an ornamental gateway, flanked by stone sentry-boxes.

From this point the descent into Malabar commences, through dense forest, with bright moonlight glancing through the branches of gigantic trees, and after a journey of fifteen miles we reached the bungalow of Ooticully in the middle of the jungle. It is in these forests, on the western slopes of the Coorg mountains, that cardamom cultivation is carried on to a great extent. In February parties of Coorgs start for these western mountains, and, selecting a slope facing west or north, mark one of the largest trees on the steepest declivity. A space about 300 feet long and 40 feet broad is then cleared of brushwood, at the foot of the tree; a platform is rigged about twelve feet up the tree, on which a pair of woodmen stand and hew away right and left until it falls head foremost down the side of the mountain, carrying with it a number of smaller trees in a great crash.

Within three months after the felling, the cardamom-plants in the soil begin to show their heads all over the cleared ground during the first rains of the monsoon, and before the end of the rainy season they grow two or three feet. The ground is then carefully cleared of weeds, and left to itself for a year. In October, twenty months after the felling of the great tree, the cardamom-plants are the height of a man, and the ground is again carefully and thoroughly cleared. In the following April the low fruit-bearing branches shoot forth, and are soon covered with clusters of flowers, and afterwards with capsules. Five months afterwards, in October, the first crop is gathered, and a full harvest is collected in the following year. The harvests continue for six or seven years, when they begin to fail, and another large tree must be cut down in some other locality, so as to let the light in upon a new crop.