500 



MANUAL OF THE NII.AGIRI DISTRICT. 



Coffee 

 cultivatiox. 



Machinery. 



-spouting. 



CH. XXVIII. of thick stone and mud-walls where stone is plentiful, otherwise 

 of brick with a shingle or tile roof, and care should be taken also 

 to thatch or cover the manure shed so as to prevent deterioration 

 of the manure by exposure to the weather. 



If sufficient water-power is available, the planter will find it 

 a great saving of labour and even of expense in the end to put up 

 a water-wheel, and in these days of great pressure on the labour- 

 market and the very general complaint of an insufficient supply 

 of coolies except in a few favoured districts, any saving of labour 

 by means of machinery is a most decided gain. 



For sending down cherry cofiee from the elevated portions of the 

 plantation to the pulper-house, spouting, though frequently used in 

 Ceylon, is not much used in India as far as I am aware, but wire 

 ropes for shooting down the cattle manure and jungle soil are 

 coming into very general use. Chafi" and litter- cutting machines, 

 especially those made by Richmond and Chandler, are often used, 

 and since manure is doubly efficacious if applied in a well-pulverized 

 state, they are valuable if only to cut the daily supply of litter or 

 bedding ; but when stall-feeding becomes general, they will be still 

 more valuable as cattle eat greedily well-cut-up fodder which they 

 would otherwise refuse. When there is a water-wheel the chaff 

 cutter can easily be attached to it and worked by it instead of 

 by manual labour. 



There are two kinds of pulper in general use — Gordon's breast 

 and Walker's single and double disc, and in olden times the old 

 Tellicherry chop-pulper, but this last has quite gone out of 

 fashion and is now rarely seen. For my part I much prefer the 

 Walker's double discs, which cost about Rupees 400 or Rupees 450, 

 and of late years have been made entirely of metal. 



Finally each estate should be provided with a pluviometer to 

 register the rainfall. 



Crop season commences and ends in different seasons of the 

 year in various districts, and even in the same district it varies 

 very considerably owing to unusually wet or dry seasons. When 

 crops are good, coolies, if they please, can earn very good wages, 

 as the rate for picking never falls below 2 annas a bushel of 

 cherry coffee, and active coolies can easily pick three and even 

 four bushels a day, though many are so lazy as to be satisfied 

 with earning the average 4 annas. Some planters merely 

 supply their coolies with baskets, which often leads to a loss of 

 coffee by spilling, and the passing of stones and other extraneous 

 matter into the pulper. Towards evening the coolies come to 

 the pulper-house carrying the coffee picked during the day, and 

 on some estates they have two deliveries daily ; the writer 

 or superintendent, standing by the bushel measure (which is 

 frequently a standing one with a door to open in front to let out 



— pulper. 



Crop — 

 picking and 

 curing. 



