Mmj 2, 1903.] AgriculturcU Gazette of N.S.JF. 401 



now being shipped to England. It is extensively grown in Florida, Cuba, 

 Porto Kico, and Jamaica, and is eaten as a breakfast fruit, with sugar. 

 There is a semi-wild species conmion in the peasants' gardens, which lias. 

 a smooth skin, with a very line flavour- but is smaller than the cultivated 

 ones. Grape-fruit usually brings i dollars (IGs. 8d.) a case in the New 

 York market. All the citrus fruit in Cuba is badly discoloured with 

 melanose, or rust-mite, and many of the fruits look as if they liad lieen 

 dipped into iidv, they are so black; others are rusty red. Several 

 lecanium scales are very abundant, and blacken the trees with smut. 

 One very large lecanid scale, which 1 saw here for the first time, attacks 

 the bark somewhat like " woolly aphis," and damages the bark where it 

 is cracked or Ijroken. "White louse" is anotlier connnon pest; but there 

 is no " red " or "yellow scale " in these orchards. The annual rainfall 

 of Cuba is GO inches; but this last year has been a drought all over the 

 island, and they have only had about half their usual rainfall ; so that 

 the orchards look at their worst. I found no record of fruit-flies in the 

 orchards ; but one peculiar pest is a bright greenish weevil (Pachnaeus 

 euresce/is), which in the larval state feed ujaon the outer surface of the 

 roots of the citrus trees, where they pupate. When tliey emerge they 

 climb up into the foliage, where the beetles lay their eggs between the 

 leaves, which they gum together in exactly the same way that the " apple- 

 root weevil " [Leptops hopei) does in the Victorian orchards. 



W^here the leaf-cutting ants {Atfa i/isidaris) are numerous, they do an 

 immense amount of damage, stripping every leaf off a tree in a single 

 night ; and roses and vegetable gardens suffer as nuich as orchards. 



In the experimental plots I noticed for the first time a native 

 chrysomelid beetle attacking the foliage of eucalyptus trees. Soma 

 Cuban cedar trees (Cedrila odorata) were so thickly covered with 

 the larvcTe of a froghopper (so enveloped in woolly matter that they 

 looked like mealy bugs) that some of them were killed. A number of 

 aleuroyds were found ujton dift'erent trees. On tlie 12th, with Mi-. Horn, 

 of the Experiment Station, I went to the Guines district, where there is 

 a heavy black soil. The small holders grow tlie tomatoes, and sell them 

 to the American packers at from 4s. 2d. to Gs. •3d. per bushel at the 

 packing sheds, which, when shipped to New York and Chicago, usually 

 bring IGs. h\. per bushel. The tomatoes are of the stone variety, and 

 are hard and green when packed. Large (piantities of cabbages, onions,. 

 and green peppers, and other vegetables are also grown in this district. 

 The chief disease of the tomato is a fungus that forms discoloured black 

 blotches beneath the skin. It is said to be caused by the tomatoes resting 

 upon the ground when the hind is irrigated. The tomato packing lasts 

 from December to the end of May. We also visited one of the largest 

 sugar-mills in this district, "La Providencia," where they have l)een 

 growing cane on the same land for over 100 years without any fertiliser. 

 This estate has about 800 caballarias (over 1G0,000 acres) ; but only part 

 of it is in cane. The output is 1-3,000,000 arrol)as of sugar (an arroba 



