All land in Malabar is private property, and the landlord gets 20 to 40 per cent. of the net rent, the remainder being the Government demand. From the gross produce of the rice-fields 20 per cent. is deducted for reaping and other small charges called _puddum_, the remainder being available gross rent. From the gross rent one-third is deducted as the expense of cultivation, called _vitoo vally_; one third as the cultivator's share, or _koshoo labon_, whether he be a _jemakar_ or proprietor, a _kanomkar_ or mortgagee, or a _pattamkar_ or renter; and the remaining third is the _pattom_, net produce, or rent. Of this last third the Government share is 65 per cent., leaving 35 per cent. as the share of the proprietor. The Government share is thus a little less than a quarter of the gross produce. The assessment is not calculated on the extent of land, but on the amount of seed required to sow a given space, according to the quality of the soil, which is divided into three classes, namely _pasma_ (clay), _rasee pasma_ (sand and clay), and _rasee_ (sand). On an average the soil does not yield more than tenfold, and most of it bears only one crop. Some lands are sown in April or May, and the crops cut in August or September. These are chiefly in the coast Talooks. Others are sown in September and October, and the crops cut in January and February. The seeds are raised on small pieces of land, and the plants, when young, removed by hand, and planted in the paddy-fields. The garden assessment, as it is called, on cocoanut-trees, the great wealth of Malabar, betel-palms, and jacks, was fixed in 1820. The cocoanut-trees are divided according to their situations and soils into five classes--the first and second classes being _attivepoo_, or sea-coast; and the third, fourth, and fifth, _karavepoo_, or inland cocoanut-trees. Each tree pays, on an average, eighteen pies,[393] those which are unproductive from age or youth being excluded. The betel-nut palms pay, on an average, six pies, and the jack-trees twenty-eight pies; but the tax on gardens is not more than forty per cent. of the landlord's rent. A cocoanut-tree is estimated to bear at least sixteen to forty nuts in the year, according to its site; and the owner of a plantation derives profit from the leaves as well as from the husks and shells of the nut. The leaves, used for covering houses, sell at two and a half to five Rs. the thousand, each tree yielding ten to fifteen annually; and the husks, for coir ropes, fetch six annas the thousand.[394]