able
estates. But to give an account of such exceptional estates might convey a
misleading idea of the general return to be obtained from coffee in Coorg,
though I think it well to allude to the fact that better returns than
those first mentioned can be obtained, and have been obtained, as it is
always of value to know what particular pieces of land can do under the
most favourable circumstances, as this opens up the important question as
to whether it would not pay better to confine cultivation on an estate to
a narrow area of the best soils and situations on it--a subject to which I
shall more particularly refer later on in this chapter.

In the case of well cultivated estates, an expenditure of eighty rupees
per acre is incurred on superintendence and field labour, and fifty rupees
an acre on manures and their application, but in many European, and most
native estates, a total expenditure for superintendence, labour and
manures of about eighty rupees only is incurred, and the results obtained
are, of course, proportionately smaller. The native gardens and
plantations are, as a rule, worked on the principle of taking everything
that can be got out of the land, and putting nothing into it. Were these
worked on European principles, it is hardly necessary to say that the
export of coffee from Coorg would be largely increased.

Cattle manure, bones, oil-cake and fish constitute the manures mainly used
in Coorg. The first is universally recognized as being the most valuable
for coffee, but the supply available in the Bamboo district (which
contains, I may remind the reader, 20,000 out of the 32,323 acres under
cultivation by Europeans), where grazing is scarce, is so small that
planters have to depend to a great extent on the three last-named manures.
Messrs. Matheson & Co., the owners of about 7,000 acres of coffee in
Coorg, kept for some years in their employ an analytical chemist,[49]
whose time was devoted to the analysis of soil, and the making of
experiments on their estates, with the view of ascertaining what was best
adapted for maintaining and improving their fertility. Salts of various
kinds were experimented with, but, though the results from them were
generally favourable, they were found to be too rapidly soluble for a
climate so subject to heavy falls of rain. In the end, after many
experiments, he came to the conclusion that the four above-mentioned
manures were the best for the climate, and that the proport