460 ON THE INDIAN COFFEE-LEAF DISEASE. 



quently at all ages in the field. Plants taken from a swampy- 

 nursery and planted in rich and dry soil often suffer, probably- 

 having the disease ere they were transplanted. If plants are put 

 out in a weedy estate and are allowed to be smothered in w r eeds, 

 and the soil round the plant caked, these suffer fearfully, often 

 being destroyed, or else so weakened that the following dry season 

 settles them. 



" The worst field I ever saw was one three years old, and on 

 which there was no crop, the soil very poor and the subsoil rather 

 gravelly, and what we call hungry, as no manures seem to have 

 a lasting effect. This season I first noticed it on our impoverished 

 field of old coffee which was overrun with Harriale, and on which 

 there was little shade. From this field it spread to all unshaded 

 parts ; but under good shade it has done very little damage. This 

 was in August last, and during a break we then had. Since then 

 I noticed one very bad field, unshaded, and uncultivated as regards 

 the soil, which was simply a sheet of grass. Another estate I 

 noticed had it bad in August ; but it was then manured with 

 guano and bones ; and now it has got quite over the disease, and 

 is throwing out no end of young wood. 



" "When the leaf is fairly covered with the rust, I have noticed a 

 small red insect feeding on it, or as I suppose to be feeding, as it 

 moves every now and again, covering the hairs on its body 

 with the spores, and, as I think, feeding by absorbing their con- 

 tents. If you can suggest any mode by which I could convey 

 a few leaves to you, I would send them, so that you might see 

 this insect for yourself. I have only noticed these insects before 

 the leaves get covered with the white web, which all get about the 

 time they are detached from the trees, and which is, I suppose, 

 the disease in an advanced stage. As a remedy, I can suggest 

 nothing ; but deep cultivation, manure, and shade of good trees 

 will help the trees to get over the disease ; and by gradually 

 weeding out the ' chicks,' I hope that we in Coorg may not have 

 to cry out as the Ceylon planters have. I may here state that 

 a field planted with plants raised from Ceylon seeds was badly 

 affected, and yet the surrounding fields of Coorg trees have as 

 yet shown no symptoms of it. This I noticed early in Sep- 

 tember. The fields were then being pitted—/, e. between every 

 four trees a large pit is opened, 3 feet long by \\ foot wide and 

 deep ; these we leave open till weeds, fallen leaves, prunings, and 

 manure fills them up again, and they are known as renovating-pits. 



