493 



MANTTAL OF THE NILAOIRI DISTRICT. 



Coffee 

 Cultivation. 



— coolv lines 



Cn. XXVIII. from the ground on stone pillars, which may be obtained complete 

 from Messrs. Massey and Co. of Calicut, or a substantial and 

 tolerably cheap bungalow may be made of mud and stone walls 

 faced with chunam and roofed with shingles, which, if made on the 

 estate, cost Rupees 3-8-0 per thousand. Unfortunately these are apt 

 to rot and be eaten by white-ants, and teak shingles are expensive, 

 costing between 15 and 18 rupees per thousand. A very good kind 

 of tile is manufactured at Calicut and Tellicherry, and if this 

 were only glazed, it would make a perfect roof ; as it is, those who 

 have tried these tiles complain that they leak after the second or 

 third monsoon. Most of the planters have been their own architects, 

 and their bungalows, whilst as a rule not exactly ornamental, are 

 useful and comfortable; but the great desideratum is a thoroughly 

 water-proof roof : the best roof, though a very expensive one, is 

 undoubtedly continuous iron covered by tiles. The site selected 

 for the bungalow should be some hill above the coifee. 



Cooly lines should be built substantially of stone and mud or 

 brick with shingle or tile roof, and provided with doors to each 

 room or compartment. Planters usually reckon that a line 60 feet 

 long by 12 or 15 feet broad and divided into 5 rooms will 

 accommodate 40 or 50 coolies ; but, as amongst the Kanarese there 

 are a number of different castes, some of whom will not live in the 

 same line with others, it is usually necessary to build two lines — 

 one for the high and the other for the low caste coolies. The 

 planter must always remember that without labour it is impossible 

 to grow coffee, and that, whilst insisting upon obtaining a fair day's 

 work for a fair duty's wage (as things go in India), he should do 

 everything in his power to make his coolies comfortable and 

 healthy : pay them regularly and in person, and not through 

 maistries ; and then, unless the plantation is in an unhealthy district, 

 he may rely upon it that his coolies will return to him year by 

 year, as they are great creatures of habit, and as a rule unenter- 

 prizing and hard to turn out of the regular groove. The coolies 

 are filthy in the extreme as regards their habits, and it is a matter 

 of astonishment that fever and dysentery do not prove more 

 often fatal. For sanitary purposes the planter should do his best 

 to induce the coolies to make use of the renovation pits, and it 

 may even in course of time become necessary for planters to erect 

 regular latrines ; but this entails keeping a number of scavengers 

 or toties, as the lowest Pariah coolies would resolutely refuse to 

 clean out these latrines. Chunam also might be frequently 

 sprinkled about the lines. 



The pulper-house should be erected rather above the store, 

 unless the two are combined in one, the lower portion forming the 

 pulper-house and the upper the store ; but this combination 



— pniper- 

 housc and 

 store. 



