Abstract

The Godavari and Vishakapatnam Agency constitute one of the vast and hitherto undeveloped hill regions of the Madras State and lie for the most part in the thickly wooded jungles of the Eastern Ghats. Due to their inaccessibility and unhealthy nature, these regions have remained largely unexploited, particularly in respect of the horticultural resources they possess. Nearly 60 or 70 years ago some Christian Missionaries and a few enterprising European planters made an attempt to develop portions of these tracts by introducing crops such as the mandarin orange, pineapple, coffee, ginger, chiratta, etc. These pioneering efforts, however, did not meet with any large measure of success due to the extremely adverse natural conditions of the tract. Some of the orange and other plantations have completely disappeared due to lack of attention and a few are found in greatly neglected state.

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