July i, 1SS4.J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 





lately-developed leaveB, and they do not meddle with the 

 older growth. 



Porcupines.— Porcupines are not common in coconut dis- 

 tricts ; but where there is even one in the neighbourhood 

 of coconuts that have lately formed stem, it is very de- 

 structive. Its mode of operation is to eat through the 

 stem and commence on a fresh tree on each nocturnal 

 visit. Wherever it puts in its appearance, it should be 

 hunted down and killed at any cost. 



Kumminitia or Black-beetle.— When the coconut has toler- 

 ably thriven during the first year and has aoy available 

 cabbage in the heart, the black-beetle commences oper- 

 atious. He bores his way through the outer covering of 

 mature leaves, gorges himself on the tender undeveloped 

 heart, and then departs till he is again an hungered, when he 

 returns and effects a fresh entrance. When he find a tree 

 especially to his taste, he returns so often, that, when the 

 cut leaves come out, the foliage has a most ragged and 

 forlorn appearance. All this work is done in the night, and 

 he is very rarely found in the tree during the day, but, 

 when he happens to delay his departure till daylight, he 

 remains in his retreat all day, and, if discovered, may be 

 slain there with a barbed wire. I have lately seen kerosino 

 oil tried, but without any effect. The insect cares not for 

 stinks, it cares not for smoke, it cares not for anything 

 man can do to circumvent it. The only way I know of 

 reaching this pest is to hunt up and destroy the grub in 

 every dunghill, every accumulation of decayed vegetable 

 matter or rotten tree in the vicinity. A specially favourite 

 breeding-place is an old heap of cinnamon scrapings on 

 estates, where a score of great white grubs may be found 

 often in a cubic foot of this matter. 



Red-beetle or Kandapanuwa. — The next foe that attacks the 

 coconut is the red-beetle. Unlike the large black species, 

 it has no alimentary apparatus whatever in its perfect 

 state, the sole business of that stage of existence being the 

 propagation of its species, and its breeding ground is the 

 tender stem of the young coconut tree. It is furnished 

 with a stiff horn in front, with which it is supposed to 

 puncture the outer coating of the stem, and deposit one egg 

 in every opening so made. As soon as the grub is hatched, 

 it begins to eat its way inwards and upwards, enlarging 

 the opening as it grows till it attains its maturity as a grub. 

 It then returns from the centre of the stem, and just 

 within the outer rind, which it reduces to the thickness of 

 foolscap, it wraps itself in a cocoon of the fiber of the 

 stem and there awaits transformation ; when that occurs, 

 it is easy for it to break through the thin partition that 

 divides it from the outer air. The coconut is in danger 

 from this insect, from the time it shows stem till it begins 

 to bear. The body of the young stem is a mass of matter 

 of the same nature and consistency as the heart of a 

 cabbage stalk, which hardens from the surface inwards. 

 Nature has provided for the protection of the tender young 

 Btem in the close fit of the imbricating leaves, which en- 

 close it on all sides, and retain their hold till they rot in 

 situ. The red-beetle cannot penetrate the leaf -imbrication, 

 and. when the older once decay in the course of nature, 

 the stein has become too hard for its operations. A tree 

 here and there may be lost from an accidental wound or 

 from some defect in the fitting of the leaf-sheaths, but 

 it is only where the good taste of the planter has impelled 

 him to trim the leaves that any serious damage has been 

 done to a fieid. All the leaves should be left on the tree 

 till Nature disposes of them at her own time and in her 

 own way. Nothing that can be done to a cocconut tree 

 above ground can be auything but injurious. As soon as 

 it is discovered that the kandapanuwa has effected an en- 

 trance, the tree should at once be rooted out, chopped up 

 and burned, as there is no more hope for it, and it is not 

 well to leave a breeding-ground for so formidable a toe. 



Rats. — When an estate is in bearing, it often becomes 

 infested with rats. They attack the half-grown nuts, make 

 a hole through the husk and shell, and, when they find a 

 a tree with fruit to their taste, they appropriate its whole 

 produce. The native cultivators put a ring of tar round 

 the steins, which they say is too smooth to give then a foot- 

 hold in climbing, and they sometimes keep a donkey in a 

 field, whose braying is supposed to frighten them to the 

 extent of driving them out of hearing of the awful sound. 

 The tar-dodge may possibly be effective, but the trees 

 should all be cleared of rats in the first place; every tree 

 ill the field should be tarred aud all otlier weans of getting 



up removed, for they can freely pass from tree to tree, 

 and, when they have sufficient food and drink and the 

 materials of a comfortable nest on the spot, they have no 

 occasion to visit on terra jirma. As for don key-braying, 

 it is probably one of the myths to be found in the folk- 

 lore of every land. It is a misfortune of the coconut 

 planter that all his foes are nocturnal in their habits, so 

 that in dealing with them he gropes in the dark. Would 

 the rat only come out and work in the day, the infested 

 trees could be watched, and a charge of sparrow-shot be- 

 stowed ou the robbers. Attempts have been made to poison 

 them, but, while they have their will of the young 

 coconuts, the most savory morsel will not tempt them. 



Locusts. — The locust is so rare in Ceylon that it is hardly 

 worth mentioning, but it sometimes appear in small numbers, 

 and the cocouut-leaf is a favourite. They devour all the 

 leaflets, leaving the bare midribs, so that, when they have 

 done with it, it has a very wintery look. 

 (To be continued.) 



SIR 



JOSEPH FAYRER ON THE RAINFALL 

 AND CLIMATE OF IVDIA. 

 Here, in Ceylon, we have no absolutely rainless 

 region, our extremes running from 250 inches in 

 Ambagamuwa to 30 at Mannar. In India, their ex- 

 tremes of rainfall vary from between 500 to 600 

 inches (610 fell at Cherapunjee in one year) down 

 to almost nil, for there are places in Rajputana, 

 Sind and Beluchistan, where rain does not fall for 

 years in succession, and then in quantity not ex- 

 ceeding a few inches. One of the great problems, 

 therefore, for the rulers of India and Ceylon, is how 

 most usefully and economically to divert the exce 83 

 of aqueous treasure in some portions of their terri- 

 tories ao as to benefit by irrigation other portions 

 which are dry or absolutely arid. Much has been 

 done by means of canals and tanks, and we cannot 

 help thinking, that, besides utilizing surface water, 

 much remains to be done in many parts of India 

 and in some parts of Ceylon, to compel the earth 

 to yield up her stores of subterranean fluid by m ans 

 of artesian wells. Dr. Fajrer spent his first yea* in 

 India at Cherapunjee, and he states that the 010 

 inches he then registered gave him an interest in 

 rainfall that he has never lost. No wonder, for the 

 fall was within two inches of fifty-one feet. The 

 contrast to this is a fall of not more than two inches 

 in four years in the great desert regions abuttiug 

 ou the Arabian Sea. Looking at the map of Ind'a, 

 we find a rainy region of from 30 to 75 inches 

 average, extending round the coasts of the Bay of 

 Bengal, from Ceylon and the Malayan Peninsula in 

 the south, on each side, to the mouths of the Ganges, 

 and away up the sides of the Himalayas where, at 

 Darjihug, the fall rises to 250 inches and more, the 

 deposit increasing up to 7,000 or 8,000 feet, and then 

 rapidly decreasing until at great heights there is no 

 rainfall, because the rising atmosphere has already 

 been compelled to part with most of its moisture. 

 Raiufall, exceeding 75 inches and up to 300, extends 

 from the south-west of Ceylon along the western 

 coast of India, until with Cutch in Sind the desert 

 regiou of under 15 inches and down to nothing com 

 mences. Of course, within what is marked as the r>dny 

 region, there are many tracts of country which show de- 

 ficiency of rainfall, because of their position on the lee- 

 side of those mountain ranges or "Gbauts" which in 

 India, and in Ceylon also, are the great agents in cool- 

 ing the atmosphere and compelling it 10 deposit its 

 superabundant moisture. But it is, as we have said, 

 the lower ranges of vast mountain masses, the 

 Kbasiya Hills for instance, in advance of the grand 

 llimuiaUyaii ranges, which being first met by the 



