TROUT CULTURE ON THE NILGIRIS. 89J> 



have gorges, rapids and waterfalls. There is no waterweed to speak of, but a 

 multitude of rocks and stones form ideal shelters for the fish. The clearness of the 

 water and the absence of weed are not without disadvantages. Visibility is in- 

 creased and there is nothing to deaden vibration. The heavy tread of an inex- 

 perienced angler is felt from far off and is often responsible for his lack of success 

 in waters which may be overstocked. 



Inhabitants : — The greater part of the Todanad and the Khundahnad are 

 essentially pastural tracts inhabited by a race of buffalo herdsmen, the Todas. 

 Where the Badaga with his system of shifting cultivation has established himself, 

 trout culture has pioved a failure. Areas opened up for tea planting on a large 

 scale, such as Melur and Kolacombai similarly contain no trout. The soil loosen- 

 ed by the hoe is washed down into the streams Avhich run red during the rains 

 and contain hardly a living creature. With the present remarkable boom in 

 potato cultivation, there is an attempt to secure potato-growing concessions in 

 the Toda country, to make it worth-while for the Todas themselves to support 

 such applications, and to argue that it is anomalous that in an age of progress huge 

 stretches of Downs should be conserved for hunting, shooting and fishing. It is 

 possible, however, to justify the reservation of the Wenlock Downs and the 

 contiguous areas on the score of safeguarding the interests of the grazing popula- 

 tion, more particularly the Todas. Cultivation means the introduction of fish-eat- 

 ing labourers such as Canarese, Tamils and Badagas. The rivers will be polluted, 

 the poacher will replace the herdsmen, and trout culture will be at an end. 



But it is not sufficient to cry out that an interesting tribe will become extinct 

 if its grazing lands be brought under the plough. It is incumbent on all lovers of 

 the gentle art to justify economically the retention of the Todana as pasture 

 land. It will be sufiicient, we think, to develope a system of co-operative dairy 

 farming throughout the area in question. The latter is fairly well supplied with 

 roads. It would be easy to improve the milk-yielding qualities of the Toda 

 bufTalo, to collect the milk each morning by means of the motor lorries, to 

 distribute it to the residents of Ootacamund in the season and to convert it into 

 condensed milk and the like \\\\ei\ the visitors are away. 



Trout culture can similarly be justified economically if it can be made an im- 

 portant source of food supply. At present an enormous quantity of stale sea-fish 

 is brought up from Madras and Malabar. It should be easy to replace this by a 

 supply "of local fish, produced locally in an area which is eminently adapted for 

 trout culture. But State Agency must be employed and the services of the 

 ExjDert retained. 



It must not be imagined that the dependence of fishing upon grazing is with- 

 out its drawbacks. The herdsman must have young grass. In February and 

 March each year, when the rivers are at their lowest and such food supply as comes 

 down in the Spates is cut off, all the grass in the country that will burn is fired. The 

 destruction of insect life, and more particularly of beetles, is enormous. The fast 

 vanishing sholas or woods are eaten into further by each successive conflagration. 

 Alreadv enormous extents of country are without a single tree. Throughout the 

 long valley of the Pykara or the bleak gorges of the Billitaddahalla the monsoon 

 winds scream with unmitigated violence. It is difficult, often impossible, from 

 the middle of June to the middle of August to keep one's cast on the water. The 

 rain pelts down mercilessly on the enterprising angler, and soon, hkc his more 

 effeminate brethren, he gives up the unequal struggle, persuades himself that 

 there are no trout and betakes himself to the club-house or the dancing-floor. 



A scheme has been started by the present Collector to grow trees and shrubs 

 in such a manner as to form 'windscreens on the one hand and asyla for trout 

 on the other. By choosing such varieties as flower readily, it is hoped to be ab e 

 to attract and breed insects and improve the food supply for the fish. At intervals 

 of a mile, dense thickets of Acacia dealbata are being formed. Angling will be im- 

 possible in these and the harassed trout will remain unmolested until he wanders 

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