i838.] 



Topographical Report on ike Neilgherries. 



95 



The vegetable products are numerous and novel, but as yet none have 

 been found to possess any properties adapted for medicine or com- 

 merce, except the holly (Berberis) the wood of which is of a bright 

 yellow and gives a good dye of the same colour. It grows very gene- 

 rally all over the hills, but it is small and stunted, and would barely 

 repay the expense of a gathering and carriage. Of fruits there is the 

 wild raspberry, which grows luxuriantly in most of the woods, and a 

 species of Myrtus, which produces a wholesome fruit, in flavour and 

 pulp resembling the English gooseberry, but enveloped in a skin like 

 that of a peach. The Brazil cherry and peaches have been successfully 

 introduced, but, generally speaking, no progress has been made in the 

 cultivation of European fruit trees, although in the culinary department 

 of horticulture the success has been very marked. Potatoes, peas, 

 beans, cabbage, cauliflower, beet, carrots, turnips, celery, lettuce, grow 

 very well and of good quality. Attempts have been made to raise 

 gram, bothchenna and coolty, but ineffectually. Barley thrives, and 

 oats partially. The latter produces little grain, but an enormous stalk? 

 five or six feet high, and proportionally thick, and which if cut will 

 grow again from the same root, so as to afford excellent fodder for cat- 

 tle, as also does the blade of the kind of millet which the natives of the 

 hills chiefly live on. 



The indigenous grasses are coarse and rank, and not good for horses, 

 although the cattle do not suffer from feeding on them. Owing to this, 

 and the coolness and humidity of the climate, through the greater part 

 of the year, sheep languish very soon, and cannot with every care be 

 fattened by grazing alone ; but goats, which have been introduced only 

 about eight years, do as well here as below. Horses fall off in flesh 

 on their first arrival, but never in spirit, which seems to be increased by 

 the bracing air I after a few months they get into good condition, if 

 due attention be paid to warm clothing and comfortable housing. 



The minerals are chiefly granite, quartz, felspar, porcelain clay, and 

 laterite— some of these contain garnets, but none of any value. The 

 laterite is the most valuable, as it can occasionally be used for building, 

 when it is superficial, as then it can be wrought with little trouble 

 while newly exposed. 



There is only one small barrack at Ootacamund, capable of contain- 

 ing a detachment of sepoys, sent here from Coimbatore to guard the 

 public office, which is the treasury, police, and post office. 



The jail is a large building consisting of three large rooms and one 

 small one with closed verandahs on both sides. Its length is north 

 and south, its front to the east and its back to the west. Being injudi- 



