1 CONSERVATOR’S REPORT.
2 Annual Report No. 744, dated 9th July 1872, on the Management and Conservancy of the
3 Coorg Forests for the Financial year 1871—72, by Captain G. J. van Somenen,
4 Conservator.
5 I have the honor to forward the Coorg Forests Progress Report for the year
6 1871—72.
7 INTRODUCTORY.
8 2. The statistical statement shewing the area of Coorg, the number of acres of
9 cultivated land, waste, and forest, cannot now be furnished with any degrce of accuracy.
10 Referring to the Civil Administration Report for 1869—70, the total area of the
11 country is given as 2,400, and cultivated area at 547 square miles. <A detailed state-
12 ment at page 63 of the statistical returns for the same year gives the cultivated area at
13 237,834 acres or 371 square miles. The Civil Administration Report for 1870—71
14 shews the area of Coorg as “more accurately computed at 1214°06 square miles,” and
15 the cultivated area 176,733 acres or about 276 square miles. I shall not therefore fol-
16 low these figures, merely slating that measuring the area of Coorg as shewn on the
17 trigonometrical map, it would appear to be about 1,600 square miles. The greater por-
18 tion is clothed with forest and jungle of various kinds, and the portion so covered may
19 be estimatod at about 900 square miles.
20 PHYSICAL FEATURES.
21 8. Coorg is a land of mountains, hills and rivers. The whole face of the country
22 is rugged, abrupt and broken. Owing to its geographical position, it has a heavy rain-
23 fall, meeting as it does the full brunt of tho south west monsoon. Excepting along the
24 north western frontier, the country lies on both sides of the Western Ghats, which, run-
25 ning north and south, divide it irregularly into two portions. The southern boundary
26 is formed by the Brammagiri range, a spur of the ghats which divides Coorg from the
27 Wynid. Several minor ridges are given off from the ghats, and such gencrally trend
28 eastwards.
29 In Northern Coorg is a short three fold chain of hills running due north and south
30 from the Bisle ghat in Manjarabad, almost to the Fraserpéte ghat leading to Mercara.
31 In the south-east, between Siddipir on the north, the Western Ghats, Brammagiri
32 range on the south, and the Mysore boundary on the east, the whole country is broken
33 up into a mass of short: ridges of varying altitudes, intersecting each other at all angles,
34 and gradaally diminishing in height as they approach the cast, where they terminate
35 somewhat abruptly on the edges of the Mysore plateau. On the minor ridges through-
36 out the country, are several hills, such as Kote Botta, north of Mercara, wlich almost
37 rival the highor peaks of the Western Ghats.
38 4. The northern talook of Yélusivirasime however presents a very different aspect
39 Lo other parts of Coorg ; compared with them it is flat, and is of exactly the same cha-
40 racter as the adjoining high lying undulating plains of Mysore, with here and there an
41 isolated hill, or short and low ridge.