482 MANUAL OF THE NILAOIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



COFFEE CULTIVATION. 



Introduction. 



Introduction of the coffee plant into South India. — Abbe Dubois. — Ooffee on the 

 Baba Booden Hills— in the Wain4d — on the Nilagiris.— Major Onchterlony's 

 note. — The Onchterlony Valley. — Area of coffee land under cultivation in the 

 district. — Statistics of coffee exports. — E&timation of cost of cultivation and 

 profits. — Books on coffee cultivation. 



CU. XXVIII. The coffee plant, belonging to the great order of Cinchonacese/ 



was introduced into South India towards the end of the eighteenth 



f.p5?ivATWN. century, probably by Arab merchants trading to the West Coast. 



The first notice of the cultivation is contained in a letter from the 



of co°ffee1nt°o Abb^ Dubois to Colonel Miller, Resident of Mysore, dated 15th 

 South India. September 1805, replying to a request of the latter to obtain a 

 Abb.i Dubois, ^aan from the West Coast acquainted with the cultivation of the 

 plant.2 He writes :— 



" I never understood that that plant grew in any part of the hills 

 situated in the west of Mysore, although I have made many times 

 enquiries on the subject with native botanists, who seem to have a 

 tolerable knowledge of the plants of the country. However, as your 

 information is by all means more extensive and more to be trusted 

 than mine, I will not contradict it ; but I may assure you that the 

 produce of that plant (if it exist in the country) as an object of diet is 

 entirely unknown to natives. That it would succeed if properly reared 

 thei'e can be no doubt. Any gentleman in this place (Seringapatam) 

 who may cultivate for curiosity sake some plants of it will produce two 

 crops in a year of good quality. * * * About ten years ago, when I was 

 in the Baramahal, Colonel Read, Collector in that part of the country, 

 undertook to make a large plantation at Tripatur by the means of 

 an American he sent for from the coast, and to whom he gave a 

 monthly pay of 25 pagodas. The plantation I saw many times had 

 thriven well during the first year, and promised success, but the 

 manager proving a man without conduct, Colonel Read was so soon 

 disgusted of his services and dismissed him. At the same time, having 

 found no one to replace him, and pei-ceiving besides that the prodnce of 

 that kind of cultivation would in no case equal the expenses necessary 

 in that part of the country, the plantation was suffered to perish." 



^ Three plants of the order are said to bo i idigenous to the Nilagiris— Co/eo 

 alpe«tris, cirannuloidefi, and Wighiiana {vide Simmonds' Tro;pical AgTiculturo). 

 ^ Papers relating to the Coffee Districts, Madras, 1859. 



