1847.] 



Laccadice Islands. 



IS 



or boiled down inlo jaggery) he supplies his master's family with 

 one-third of the raw produce, boiling the rest down into jaggery 

 which he sells entirely on his own account. This is the only species 

 of produce rent existing on the island. Money rents are as yet 

 quite unknown and generally rents may be said to be confined to 

 labour rent. 



The facilities of becoming owners or establishing themselves on 

 less thickly occupied islands are so great, that these tenants enjoy, of 

 course, favorable terms, and the allowance is generally from 30 to 50 

 trees per man. Quarrels between these tenants and their masters 

 jire there the principal source of dispute. 



It seems too to have been customary, for the poorer families in for- 

 mer days, to put themselves under the protection of the richer, en- 

 gaging to send their coir to the coast in their boats and to work as 

 Kalassies'^ on these occasions. In many cases also these good will 

 services were mortgaged. The former was probably necessary under 

 the Native Government, but these are claims which the dependants 

 are now often unwilling to acknowledge, and give rise to frequent 

 disagreements. 



The cocoanut mav be said generally to be the only 

 Dry Grain. , . . .f 



production which can be taken into account, for with 



the exception of a small quantity of plantain and dry grains produced 

 in the tot of Ameendevy, and other agricultural production is very 

 insignificant. On some spots not jQi occupied by trees a little coarse 

 grain is sown during the monsoon but the quantity is very limited ; 

 and its value certainly not greater than that of the hakJcalf cultivat- 

 ed in this district. 



Like all fishing communities, the generality of the 

 The Cocoanut. . , , . j p ^^ ^ i i 



inhabitants are very poor, and preier that agreeable 



employment or pastime to the labours of agriculture. The soil 

 is however so well adapted by nature to the cocoanut that the life of 

 the tree and at least a certain degree of productive power seem to 

 be quite independent of agricultural attention, artificial manuring or 

 frequent watering. In most of the islands it is necessary to rear the 

 plants with some attention for the first year, and after transplant- 

 ing, to water them for a few weeks till they strike root, the tree is then 

 left entirely to itself and comes into bearing at periods varying, ac- 

 cording to the situation and soil as well as in different islands, from 



* Or Sailors. f The most inferior liind of dry land. 



