278 Coffee Planting. 



chapter, in some districts the Government upset 

 price is a merely nominal sum, representing the 

 cost of survey and demarcation, an annual assess- 

 ment being levied subsequently. In others, the 

 assessment is commuted on payment of a sum 

 of 50 rupees per acre. As a matter of fact, how- 

 ever, the cost of Government lands in S. India 

 need hardly be taken into account, comparatively 

 little land suitable for planting purposes now re- 

 maining in the hands of Government in either the 

 Neilgherries, Coorg, or Wynaad, while there is 

 great difficulty in securing what there is at any 

 price, except under the most stringent conditions. 

 The same remark will also soon become applicable 

 to Ceylon. It is thus more a question of what 

 private landholders will accept, and here the mar- 

 gin is perplexingly wide. Natives are fully alive 

 to the keenness of the inquiry among European 

 capitalists of late years for this kind of property, 

 and have not been slow to take advantage of it, 

 any more than have Europeans in their position. 

 Consequently, we hear of 100, 150, and 200 rupees 

 an acre being asked for forest land, which a few 

 years ago could have been got at 15 or 20 rupees. 1 

 These prices, however, are practically prohibitory, 



1 Some natives being asked last year at what price they 

 would dispose of a block of 150 acres of forest in the Wynaad, 

 at once demanded 30,000 rupees = ^20 per acre ! 



