In bringing these brief remarks to a close, I may observe that I formed a very high opinion of coffee in Coorg, and I feel confident that if the shade were remodelled on the system recommended in my chapter on that subject, the losses from Borer and leaf disease would be largely diminished, and a great general improvement in the coffee take place.  We have experienced such results from improved shade in Mysore, and there can be no doubt that similar results will follow in Coorg.  In remodelling the shade system, all light and dry soils should be first attended to and planted up with trees which give an ample and cool shade.  The treatment of other parts of plantations may be postponed.

As regards the profits that may reasonably be expected from well managed and well situated estates in Coorg, I am happy to say that I have obtained from a friend the returns from his estates for the last ten years, and as his properties are of large extent, the return may be regarded as a very reliable one, more especially as the prices for three years of the period were very low.  The average yield per acre was 4 cwt. 1 qr. 7 lbs.; the expenses, L9 4s. 2d., and the profits per acre L7 8s. 6d.

I only wish that, in conclusion, I could give as favourable an account of the prospects of sport in Coorg as I can of its coffee.  Twenty-five years ago there was good big game shooting, but the absence of game laws, and the indiscriminate destruction of does, fawns, and cow bisons by the natives, at every season of the year, have changed all that, and it is with a melancholy smile that one reads in the “Coorg Gazetteer” that the Coorgs are such ardent sportsmen that they have hardly left a head of game in the country.  But the first sign of advanced civilization—­the intelligent preservation of wild animals—­has begun, or will shortly be begun, in the enlightened state of Mysore, and I trust that its good example may soon be followed in Coorg, and all parts of India.  With the aid of preservation game will soon increase in the more remote forests into which it has been driven back, and from thence spread into other parts of the country.

FOOTNOTES: 

[48] “Manual of Coorg,” compiled by Rev. G. Richter, Principal, Government Central College, Mercara.  Mangalore, 1870.

[49] The late Mr. William Pringle, who, after leaving Coorg, wrote in 1891, for the “Madras Mail,” some interesting and suggestive papers on the cultivation of coffee.

[50] I make this statement on the authority of Mr. Meynell (vide preface), and it is, no doubt, the result of his experience in the Bamboo district, but his estimate could hardly, I should say, apply to the estates I visited in North Coorg.

CHAPTER X.

COFFEE PLANTING IN MYSORE.