And here I would particularly call the attention of the Government to the following remarks on the reservation of land in Coorg for State forests, much of which, as we have seen, might be utilized for coffee.

When, as in former times in Coorg, the planters used no shade, many good arguments existed in favour of making very large reserves of forest land in order to prevent denudation, and its injurious effects on climate, and on the water supply of the rivers and the country generally.  But when you merely replace the underwood of the forest with an underwood of coffee which completely covers the ground, and again shield this from drying winds and the burning sun by a complete covering of trees, either those of the original forest or others planted to take their place, the case is entirely altered, and from the coffee land thus shaded there is no more loss of water and soil (perhaps not so much loss of water, as great pains are taken to avert wash) than there was in the original forest, and the climatic and conservative effects of forests are therefore entirely undisturbed.  Wherever, then, lands exist which are suitable for coffee planting under shade, they should certainly, in the interests of the country generally, and especially of the rapidly increasing population, be taken up for coffee, and the State forests be confined to those tracts which, from over heavy rainfall, or other causes, are unsuitable for coffee planting.

Other products, and especially cinchona, have received a fair amount of attention in Coorg, and the land on the Ghauts to the westward, where, as we have seen, the coffee plantations have been abandoned, proved to be well suited for the production of the commoner kinds of bark, and large extents of abandoned or semi-abandoned lands were planted with cinchonas.  But when the prices of bark fell (whoever takes to growing a drug will soon realize the meaning of the phrase “a drug in the market"), the cultivation was no longer worthy of attention, and has practically died out.  Ceara rubber also met with the same fate.

I may here mention that Messrs. Matheson and Co., who held no less than 7,000 out of the 20,000 acres occupied by Europeans in the Bamboo district, went to great expense in introducing coffee seed from Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, with the view of ascertaining whether coffee grown from the seed thus imported would be less susceptible to attacks of leaf disease.  But, though the plants raised from these seeds are doing exceedingly well, it was found that they were also liable to be attacked by leaf disease, often before they were even out of the nursery, and in this respect proved to be neither better nor worse than the Coorg variety of coffee.  A clearing of fifty acres has been entirely planted with coffee raised from Blue Mountain seed, but there is nothing in the appearance of the trees to show that they are not indigenous to the country.

Liberian coffee has been tried experimentally in several parts of Coorg, but I cannot learn that any results have been obtained which would tend to encourage its adoption as a substitute for the variety at present grown.