280 Coffee pulping injurious. App. E. 



but it should be borne in mind that they cannot stop the 

 effects of their poison abruptly at their boundaries: the 

 tainted river will roll on. They also will benefit, as well 

 as Canara; for if they spare the fry which are to descend 

 and stock its rivers, those same fry, when grown, will not 

 fail to revisit them annually, crowding up in increased 

 numbers to spawn. In short, Mysore, Coorg, and Canara, 

 possess, more or less in common, one water farm, which, 

 to be cultivated to advantage, must be worked in unison. 

 At present, however, these people poison the fish and way- 

 lay the descending fry in innumerable cruives. 



16. Coorg has also coffee pulpers. When numerous, 

 they apparently affect a river as injuriously and offen- 

 sively as do the flax pits of Ireland. On the Mercara. 

 Ghat there are many coffee estates. During the crop 

 season their pulpers are constantly at work, and the re- 

 fuse from them all runs into the head of the Puiswani 

 river. Pulped as coffee now is, a great quantity of water 

 is defiled, and the river for miles down is rendered liter- 

 ally as dark as porter, and as foetid as flax water. Even 

 after it commences to clear, the stones are all coated with 

 slime. Without hastily coming to the conclusion that be- ' 

 cause the river was foul and offensive to human beings 

 it must necessarily be so to fish also, every practicable 

 effort was made to ascertain accurately whether the fer- 

 menting saccharine matter brought down by the pulpers, 

 was attractive and nutritious to fish, or was repulsive 

 enough to cause them to migrate, or so far deleterious 

 as to sicken or kill the smaller ones, or so poisonous as to 



