But the oldest coffee-district in Southern India is Wynaad, a forest-covered plateau about 3000 feet above the sea, which adjoins the Neilgherries on the north. In this district there are upwards of thirty coffee-plantations, some of them, such as that of Messrs. Campbell and Ouchterlony, near the ascent to the Neilgherry hills, being very extensive.[414] There is a great rainfall in Wynaad during the S.W. monsoon, and the crops are very abundant; but at the same time the coffee is not so good as that grown in drier situations, such as the Neilgherries near Coonoor, though the yield is greater. Most of the available land is already taken up. The labour is derived from Mysore, whence the coolies come, often from distances of sixty or seventy miles, returning to their families when their wages are paid. In 1860 the tax on coffee-estates in Wynaad was fixed at 2 Rs. an acre on land actually planted, to be imposed in the third year, at which time the trees are in bearing.[415] The export trade in coffee, from all the hill-districts of Southern India, was, in 1859-60, as follows:-- Quantity. Value. From the ports of Malabar 7,35,19,26lbs. 7,35,177 R^s " " Canara 5,13,36,35 8,66,644 " " Tinnevelly 23,36,93 23,387 " port of Madras 8,15,89,74 2,49,846 ---------- --------- 20,87,82,28 18,75,054 ----------- --------- In connexion with the clearing of forests for coffee-cultivation, it is imperative that due attention should be paid to the preservation of valuable timber, and the conservancy of the belts of wood near the sources and along the upper courses of streams, so as to ensure the usual supplies of water, and to retain a due amount of moisture in the atmosphere. For the superintendence of these important measures, together with other duties, Dr. Cleghorn has been placed at the head of a Forest Conservancy Department in the Madras Presidency. He strongly urges that the high wooded mountain-tops overhanging the low country should not be allowed to be cleared for coffee-cultivation, lest the supplies of water should be injured.[416] "The courses of rivulets," he says, "should be overshadowed with trees, and the hills should therefore be left clothed for a distance of half their height from the top, leaving half the slopes and all the valleys for cultivation. Immense tracts of virgin forest in the valleys of the Koondah hills are eminently suited for coffee-cultivation. The clearing should only be allowed from 2500 to 4500 feet, this being the extreme range within which coffee planted on a large scale is found to thrive."