376 



COFFEE-CULTIVATION. 



Chap. XXII. 



the absolute title of tlie holder, free from all demands on 

 account of land-revenue, with full powers to dispose of the 

 land at pleasure, but not exempting it from payments for 

 municipal purposes. Other parties, however, claiming a 

 previous right in the land, will be free to sue the holder in 

 the Civil Courts, up to a certain time, so that it will be 

 necessary to make careful investigations on this point before 

 purchasing. When the land-tax is not redeemed, Govern- 

 ment will issue permanent title-deeds, reserving a quit-rent, 

 and the holder ^vill be free to redeem the tax, on the same 

 terms, at any future time. 



With regard to labour on the Neilgherries, there used to 

 be abmidaut supplies of coohes fi-om Mysore and Coimbatore, 

 but they have recently fallen off, owing to competition on 

 the railway works. Mr. Staues was paying his labourers 

 4:^ Rs. a month, and women 3J Rs. He told me that he was 

 particular always to pay every labourer himself, and to be 

 very land to them, by which means he never found any 

 difficulty in jjrocuring labour. Some of the planters get the 

 services of Badagas, and even of some Km-umbers in the 

 picking-time, but the bill tribes are not generally willing to 

 work on the coffee plantations. There are fifteen coffee 

 estates on the Neilgherry hUls. 



But the oldest coffee-district in Southern India is Wynaad, 

 a forest-covered plateau about 3000 feet above the sea, which 

 adjoins the Neilgherries on the north. In this district there 

 are upwards of thu-ty coffee-plantations, some of them, such 

 as that of Messrs. Campbell and Ouchterlony, near the ascent 

 to the Neilgherry hills, being very extensive.^ There is a 

 great rainfall in Wynaad during the S.W. monsoon, and the 

 crops are very abundant ; but at the same time the coffee is 



8 There are 11,386 acres of land 

 under coffee cultivatiou in Wyuaad, 

 7358 owned by Europeans, and i028 



by natives : of these 7224 are liable to 

 assessment, that is, the coffee-trees 

 are in bearinsr. 



