Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... Unlike tea, coffee was not introduced into India by European enterprise, and even in the present day its cultivation there is largely followed by the natives only. The Malabar coast has always enjoyed a direct commerce with Arabia, and at an early date in the world's history gave many converts to Islam, one of whom, Baba Bouden by name, is said to have gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca and to have brought back with him " seven coffee-berries," which he planted on the hill range of Mysore and which is still called after him, and which, according to local tradition, occurred about two centuries ago. The shrubs thus said to be sown lived on, but their systematic cultivation did not spread until the beginning of the present century. While another account states that the coffee-plant was first introduced into India, on the Malabar coast, by the Arabs themselves, as far back as 1740, yet no official mention is made of the plant or its product in that country up to 1822, when its cultivation as a curiosity was first began in the Wynaad district, another plantation being formed later in the adjoining district of Manjarabad. The Baba Bouden range, in the State of Mysore, also witnessed the first opening of a coffee plantation by an English planter in 1840, the success of this experiment leading to the extension of coffee cultivation in the neighboring districts of Madras and Malabar. In 1840, a plantation was also started in Manautoddy, and in 1842 it was found growing well in Belgaum. From 1842 to 1860, however, the enterprise made but slow progress, but since the latter date it has spread with great rapidity along the whole line of the Western Ghauts, clearing away the primeval forest and opening up a new era of prosperity to the laboring classes...
