18 



The Neilgherry Mountains. 



[No. 34, 



Barley Next in importance in the class of productions is 



barley, the quantity of which, raised during the pa?t 

 year far surpasses that of wheat. In 1847 it amounted to 1,419 

 vullums, each vullum producing on an average 400 kolagums, mak- 

 ing a total of 



60,383 bushels, 

 or 7,548 quarters, 

 taking the imperial bushel as before at 2,218 cubic inches, and the 

 kolagum, by my measurement, at 226 cubic inches. The barley 

 grown on the Neilgherries is divided into two kinds by the Burghers, 

 the first and best being " Sheemey ganjee" or English barley, so 

 called from its being the degenerate produce of English seed given to 

 the head Burghers many years ago, by, I believe, Mr. Sullivan, when 

 Collector of this district, and the other "Malley ganjee" or Hill 

 barley, which they describe as indigenous to the Hills. The quality 

 of both sorts is very poor, nor is this much to be wondered at when 

 their defective mode of cultivation is witnessed, and the great deteri- 

 oration of the grain, which naturally results from the constant em- 

 ployment of the same seed in the same land over and over again, 

 without any change or any attempt at the introduction of imported 

 or mixed seed. The weight of a kolagum of ordinary barley is 5^ 

 lbs. which gives 54 lbs. for the weight of a hushel, and 432 lbs. for 

 that of a quarter. The return in moderately good ground is 50 per 

 cent, under that of wheat, being only 20 measures of crop for 1 

 measure of seed. 



The yield per cawny is 14-7 bushels, 

 or per acre 11' 12 do. 

 and the total amount of barley cultivation is 



in cawnies 4,109 

 or in acres 5,433 



jj^p^ Before quitting the subject of barley I cannot 



refrain from adverting to one immediately con- 

 nected with it, and which I deem of so much importance, that al- 

 though I am not sanguine in my hopes that Government may be in- 

 duced by any representation made by me to institute experimental 

 proceedings, with a view to test the feasibility of the scheme, I still 

 consider it my duty to place on record in this memoir the results of 

 experiments which I have had favorable opportunities of making, un- 

 der the impression that a time must eooner or later come when this, 



