CHAPTER IX. 



COFFEE IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 



THE similarity in the seasons and general physical 

 character of the two countries, renders the practice 

 and mode of cultivation in India similar to that in 

 Ceylon. The south-east monsoon generally sets in 

 fifteen or twenty days sooner in Ceylon than in India, 

 which occasions the crops there to be earlier ; and 

 hence it follows that, though the crops are seldom 

 picking in India before the 1 5th of October, and more 

 commonly a month later, in Ceylon it is commenced 

 as early as August on some estates. There is a dis- 

 advantage attending early crops in the prevalence of 

 rain up to the end of November, and, from what has 

 been already said, it will be gathered that fine weather 

 considerably assists crop work; in fact, without it 

 artificial means must be resorted to for drying the 

 coffee, or it would either ferment or become mouldy. 

 To those planters as are so unfortunately situated as 

 to have estates which ripen their crops in the rainy 

 season, an apparatus patented by Mr. Clerihew, and 

 exhibited at the International Exhibition in 1851, may 

 be confidently recommended. It is too complex to be 

 understood without diagrams and plans, for which 

 there is not space in this work. Suffice it to say, that 

 the rationale of the process* is to draw a draft of 



