large extents that
might be utilized are included in the State forests, and thus are not
available to the public. Hence there is little room for extension, and
openings for young men with capital are few and far between, so far as
obtaining fresh forest is concerned, though of course opportunities
occasionally occur for purchasing estates, or acquiring shares in them on
various terms.

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.