The first European plantation was, as we have seen, started in
1854, but for many years previously coffee cultivation had been carried on
by natives in the Nalknaad District, though it seems to be quite uncertain
as to when or how it was first introduced, or where the first seeds were
obtained.

At first all seemed to be going well with coffee in Coorg, and for a good
many years the fatal mistake of the planters in clearing down the whole
forest, and leaving no shade over the coffee, was not decisively apparent,
and from the lands that were thus cleared down on the above-mentioned
Ghauts, which lie on the western side of the province, from 700 to 1,000
tons were picked annually when the coffee was at its best. But what in
"the seventies" represented about L100,000 of valuable property, gradually
became more and more unprofitable, till at last the estates were
abandoned, and the land has now become covered with masses of Lentana (a
crawling, climbing, thorny plant which has become a perfect plague in
Coorg), amidst which may occasionally be seen the white walls of unroofed
bungalows, and dismantled pulping houses, which testify to the melancholy
ending of the work of the planters whom I found so busily engaged when, in
1857, I first entered Coorg.

Some attributed the failure to the Bug, some to the Borer, and to leaf
disease, while others blamed the heaviness of the tropical rains, which
washed away the valuable surface soil, the flight of which towards the
western sea was much expedited by weeding with the mamoty (a digging hoe),
which loosened the soil, and so prepared the way for its more rapid
disappearance. And these causes no doubt hastened the end, but they were
mainly results arising from one great cause--the neglect to supply shade
for the coffee, and this again arose from the circumstance that most of
the pioneer planters came from Ceylon where the coffee is planted in the
open, and where shade is not required. And this failure, owing to the
neglect of shade, had a most unfortunate effect, for it was owing to this
that Coorg naturally acquired such a doubtful coffee reputation in the
eyes of the uninformed public--a reputation which, as I shall afterwards
show, arose not from any fault of the country as a coffee field, but
solely from the fatal mistake of attempting to plant without providing
shade for the coffee. And this mistake the planters, as we shall see, had
great difficulty in shaking off, for when the