Chap. XXTI. COFFEE-CULTIVATION. 375 



for 4 annas the pound. In three years the estate ought to 

 pay 10 per cent, on the capital expended, if well conducted ; 

 the next year the gross profit should iucrease to 60 per cent., 

 and afterwards to 100 per cent. A good dwelling-house will 

 cost 4000 Ks. ; the pulping-house, macliinery, and godowns, 

 4000 Rs. more. Carpenters get 20 Rs. a month, bricklayers 

 15 Rs., with 2 annas a day batta for coming out of the town, 

 and common labourers 4|^ Rs. 



The Neilgherry planters have great advantages in the way 

 of means of conveyance from their estates to Calicut and Bey- 

 poor, their ports of shipment. The coffee is carried down the 

 Coonoor ghaut on pack-bullocks to Matepoliem, and thence 

 in carts along a good road, by Palghatchery, to the sea-coast. 

 Generally the coffee from the Neilgherry estates is bought 

 by Mr. Perry and Mr. Andrews at Calicut, in rather a dirty 

 state. They have garbhug-machines for clearing away all 

 remaining dry pulp, and removing the outer coat from the 

 seeds ; and they make their profit by shipping the coffee and 

 selling it in a clean state fit for European use. Neilgherry 

 coffee has an excellent name in the London market. 



Europeans, on the Neilgherries, hold land by a puttum or 

 grant from Government, leasing it in perpetuity, so long as 

 the assessment is paid, which is fixed at 1 R. per acre of 

 coffee-land, levied after the third year. By the resolution 

 of the Madras Government, dated August 5th, 1859, the terms 

 on which waste lands can be purchased were regulated. 

 These orders apply to all the regions in Southern India 

 which are suited for coffee or chinchona cultivation. It was 

 resolved to sell outright the fee-simple of all land used for 

 building, and of waste land in the hills, without reservation 

 of quit-rent, and with an absolute and indefeasible title, 

 sold to the highest bidder at an upset price, at twenty times 

 the amount of yearly quit-rent or land-tax. A title-deed 

 will be given under the seal of the (Government, declaring 



