may now be had for L90, and on other lines of steamers the rates
are lower. But it is now time to turn from matters of detail to consider
the advantages of coffee in Mysore, as a good, safe, and permanent
investment, and in order to show that the two last mentioned statements
are well founded, I have obtained some details which will show the
probable profits of coffee in Mysore. For obvious reasons I withhold the
names of the estates. I have said that the investment is a permanent one,
and by this I mean that, unless ruined by profound and incredible
stupidity, a well shaded coffee estate in Mysore will last as long as the
world will, or at any rate as long as the inhabitants of it choose to
drink coffee, and in confirmation of this opinion, I may mention that one
of the most flourishing pieces of coffee I have ever seen in Mysore was
planted on land first opened about ninety-five years ago, and which was
replanted about seventy years after it was first opened. I can also point
to land opened in 1857, and which has in recent years been replanted with
the new variety of coffee imported from Coorg, and, as the owner of it
said to me last year when we were going round the property, "The estate is
now looking better than you have ever seen it." But all the old estates in
Mysore that were planted in the proper coffee zone are in existence now,
and many of them look better than they ever did. The durability of coffee
property in Mysore, then, is, as we have seen, not a subject of
speculation, but an ascertained fact, and I now proceed to show that it is
as profitable as it is durable.

The first case I have to give relates to coffee property purchased by a
friend of mine with money borrowed at eight per cent. interest, and with
his permission I publish an account of his investment, as it not only
shows what has been done in Mysore in the face of great difficulties, but
illustrates the profits that may be expected from a property that is well
managed, and well situated as regards soil and climate. In 1876, then, he
purchased a native estate of 240 acres of good coffee land, of which 180
acres had been very irregularly planted with "chick" coffee (the original
Mysore plant). The total cost amounted to 98,000 rupees, which sum was
borrowed at eight per cent. By 1880 the loan was reduced, from the profits
of the coffee, by about 30,000 rupees, and my friend then purchased an
adjoining native estate of 163 acres, sixty of which wer