e being increased from want of digging, when there
was a good opportunity of contrasting the dug with the undug soil.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SELECTION OF LAND FOR PLANTATIONS, AND THE VALUATION OF COFFEE
PROPERTY.

The selection of land for the planting of coffee requires great judgment,
and the consideration of many circumstances besides the question as to
whether the land is or is not capable of growing good coffee. For, in
addition to questions of the age of the forest land, climate, the
steepness of the gradients, aspect, and soil, we have to consider the
healthiness of the climate, the water supply, the facilities for procuring
labour, and the proximity of the land to good means of communication. Then
as to the valuing of coffee plantations we have, of course, to consider
all these points, as well as many others, to which I shall presently
allude when I come to treat of that branch of my subject.

In Mysore, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of forest land stretching
along the Western Ghauts, there is, compared to the total area of forest,
but comparatively little land, suitable for coffee, to be cleared. In the
southern part of the province there is none, that I am aware of, worthy of
the attention of Europeans, but one of the planters in the northern part
of Mysore tells me that in that part of the country there is still much
uncleared land, partly in the hands of the State, and partly the property
of individuals. Such uncleared lands (and it is important when valuing a
plantation to remember the following classification) may be divided into
three classes, (1) the original forest, or, as the natives call it,
mother jungle, that has never been touched by man; (2) the forest of
secondary growth which has sprung up after the mother forest land has been
cleared for grain growing, and abandoned after a crop or two has been
taken from the soil; and (3) land on which young forest is growing, and
which has never previously had any other forest on it. These three classes
of lands are easily recognized by experienced persons, and even at a
considerable distance. In the first there are large numbers of trees of
great size, and often of timber of good quality. In the second there are
no large trees, or perhaps only one or two samples of the original
forest--generally mangoe, as they are often used as worshipping
places--towering from fifty to sixty feet above the present level of the
forest. In the case of the thir