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 were also very irregularly planted with chick coffee. The price was 13,250 rupees, which he also borrowed at eight per cent. The total amount borrowed was thus 111,250 rupees, and the total coffee land was 403 acres. Up to about this time the chick coffee had done fairly well, and by 1880 the loan, as we have seen, was reduced by 30,000 rupees, but soon afterwards this variety of coffee plant began rapidly to deteriorate all over the district, and estates like my friend's, which had hitherto given satisfactory profits, did but little more than pay their working expenses. But, luckily for himself, my friend, directly after the purchase of each estate, began to plant them with the Coorg kind of coffee (afterwards fully alluded to in this chapter) which had been recently introduced, and, as the old chick trees were from six to seven feet high, and had no lower branches, they did not for some time interfere with the progress of the Coorg plants, and yielded enough to pay expenses. As the Coorg plants came into bearing the old chick plants were removed, and in 1887-88 nearly ninety tons of coffee were picked, and by that year the whole debt, principal and interest, was paid off, and a considerable balance was left over to my friend's credit. In 1889-90 the property gave him a clear profit of £3,350, and it has done well ever since. Thus with all these tremendous difficulties to contend with, and in the face of the loss of all the old coffee, and after having to replant the whole property at great expense, my friend found himself in the possession of an estate, free of all debt, capable of yielding good annual profits. And it must be remembered, further, that this result was obtained, not from virgin forest land exclusively, but from land the greater part of which consisted of old native plantations.