From what I have hitherto said, it is evident that in many cases the valuing of an estate presents to the mind an extremely complicated problem, and there are so many exceptions and limitations, and so many points of doubtful nature—­the question of the age, for instance, at which the coffee tree declines—­that I cannot attempt to do more than indicate those to which the valuator should turn his attention.  There are, however, points on which I can express a more decided opinion—­the shade on an estate, its kind, or kinds, and regulation.

After what has been previously written as to shade, its weight in determining the value of a plantation must obviously be very great; so much so, that planters, when going round an estate in Mysore, are generally more taken up with observing the shade than the coffee underneath it.  And I cannot, perhaps, better illustrate the effects of bad caste trees than by mentioning what a neighbour said to me when I was going round his plantation.  He pointed to the coffee under a bad caste tree and said, “The coffee there gave a good crop this year, but the trees are suffering now, and will give a poor crop next year; while the coffee under the good caste trees there gave a good crop this year, are looking well now, and will give a good crop next year.”  Such, then, is the difference, and sometimes it is much more, between bad and good caste shade trees.  And when the reader remembers that Mr. Graham Anderson has said that he has experienced more misfortune of every kind owing to the presence of bad caste shade trees, it is evident that a valuator should attach a much higher value to a plantation shaded entirely with good caste shade trees than to one with bad or indifferent kinds of shade trees.  For the latter mean diminished crops, and more Borer and leaf disease, while the former lead to the very opposite effects.

Manurial facilities have next to be taken into consideration, and here we shall find a very great difference between estates.  Some, but I am afraid very few, have spare, odd bits of jungle land which the proprietors have acquired for the purpose, or angles of the original forest which they have left uncleared, from which valuable top soil may be procured, while others are in parts of the country where the grazing for cattle is good, and where cattle manure can sometimes be bought from the natives.  But many estates have no top soil resources, and but poor facilities of making bulk manure, and all these points require to be carefully considered when valuing an estate.

But besides all the previously mentioned points, there are the labour facilities, the water supply, and lastly, but by no means leastly, the concentration of all the points of most importance in one central point to be taken into consideration.  It often happens on estates that the nursery is in one place, the pulping-house half a mile from that, and the bungalow half a mile from either.  But is it not obvious that an estate is more valuable when the bungalow, drying-ground, pulper, and nursery are all within a stone’s throw of each other?