December i, 1884.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



427 



a mixed collection of terrestrial arthropods preserved in 

 spirits without finding one or more individual or even 

 species of these parasitic arachnids, and that the least 

 observant amongst us must have repeatedly met with 

 instances of it. Various remedies have been suggested 

 and tried, of which the most approved consists in 

 sprinkling the affected hushes with muddy water. An 

 instructive commentary on the efficacy of this remedy 

 is furnished by the following particulars of a case in 

 which it uas applied by nature in the most perfeel 

 manner conceivable, and yet signally failed : — On one 

 occasion a badly smitten tea-plantation suffered pro- 

 longed submersion beneath the overflowing waters of a 

 hill-stream, the water standing high over the tops of the 

 highest bushes for several days. When the waters had 

 subsided the bushes were all found to be covered wi'h 

 a complete coating of the fine silt of which these tor- 

 rential mountain-streams hold such a load in suspension, 

 and presented, according to my informant, a (inly re- 

 markable appearance. The weather happening at the 

 tune to be dry and sunny, the coating of mud somi 

 dried, and on the second day after the recession of the 

 flood the spiders were as active as before, having clearly 

 been preserved by their silken webs." 



The Tea-hug is described as being a member of a 

 genus of Capsides which is characteristic of the Indo- 

 Malayau fauna, and extends in its distribution from North- 

 eastern and Southern India (including Ceylon) through 

 the Philippines, to Waigion and New Guinea, The author 

 quotes the opinion of Mr. Peal as to the ravages caused 

 by the pest. The general view of the tea is that, the 

 shoots are all brown, withered, and in fact dead, and the 

 tea presents a generally brown look, instead of the bright, 

 healthy green that is usual. Mr. Wood-Mason claims the 

 credit for having discovered the manner and position in 

 which the tea-bug lays its eggs, and his observations in 

 this direction were published in the Assam Ga .< 'tie in 1881 ; 

 but he gives, in the work under review, a more detailed 

 account than that which previously appeared, and he furn- 

 ishes some interesting information regarding the habits 

 of the insects and describes some experiments that he 

 made that will doubless he read with interest by tea plant- 

 ers. One of the experiments is described as follows : — 



"I placed fi nil- or five virgin females in company with males 

 in a cage with fresh tea-shoots. I witnessed the union of 

 the sexes and the subsequent deposition of the eggs. As 

 soon as the eggs were laid, I dissected one of them out of 

 the shoot, and mounted it in glycerine and water. On 

 crushing the preparation by slight pressure of the cover- 

 ing glass, the contents of the uusegmeuted ovum ran out 

 together with four spermatozoa. I still possess this pre- 

 paration, which is proved to have been made from an egg 

 taken fi '.in a shoot, by the presence of masses of the tissues 

 of the plant containing spiral vessels. The respiratory pro- 

 cesses of the egg-shell so closely resemble the hue pubescence 

 which clothes the surface of the shoots as to be quite indistin- 

 guishable from it to the unaided eye, and, to eyes un- 

 accustomed to zoological work, even with the aid of an 

 ordinary lens ; so that it is no wonder that the planters 

 had altogether failed to find the eggs of this pest after 

 these had left the bodies of the females." 



The book is well printed, and the coloured plates are ac- 

 companied by descriptive notices of the insects illustrated.— 

 < 'alcutta Eittjlishiitu u. 



MOSQUITO BLIGHT. 



Sir,— In your valuable paper of the -2nd Spptemher— article 

 " Ceylon Notes " — your correspondent writes of the H.dopeltis or 

 mosquito, which is the sauie pest that troubles our Indian Tea 

 gardens, and is called the mosquito blight, the insects being a 

 yood dedl larger than a mosquito, with long legs and proboscis. 



There 19 but little doilM tli.it tills 1- tile COOSt i le-l reel 1 ve tun! 



formidable of all blights-. Ked spider has been much eumiuented 

 ..n though 1 doubt it ii is nearfy as destructive us the green-fly 

 which is becoming; most common in the Darjeeling Hill gardens, 

 the effect of which is to deprive the leaf of its ordinary amount 

 of Bap. lie- leaf is small and .stunted, as is the length of the 

 llush, which would not weigh one-fourth of it^ ordinary weight; 

 and this fakes more than twice the ordinary tone to i en, 



and if left on the liusl.es shrivels up and the buds or tips die 

 off. No efficient remedy has been found that could be applied 

 lor this blight, up to this, that would be cheap enough. I am 

 e'Miiii^ to know if any of your readers have tried placing small 

 pans eu the garden, filled with kerosiiie oil, mid put somewhere 

 near the hushes affected, bidding the kerosuie in the night so us 



to attract the insects to their destruction? I have no doubt this 

 would be a valuable method of destroying the mosquito when 

 mature, for it is well known how all insects are attracted by 

 lights during the night. A muster of coolies with Lighted torches, 



paraded in lines through the hushes, and made to pass the l"r. hr 

 quickly under and around the hushes so us In B.VOid iOn In ii j 



them, would, I presume, do great havoc among file mosquito. I 

 should suy a till of castor oil, mixed with uIm.iiI three or four q Hurls 

 of kerosiiie, would be the best oil to use with the torches, as 

 it would .rente a large flame, and not he s.. liable I" '■<• extin- 

 guished hy wind. The experiment is simple, and wind. I destro) 

 more mosquitos than could be killed with the hand bj ever so 

 large fl stuff of coolies. 



I would much like to know how this succeeds, and d the 

 writer of "Ceylon Notes," or any other person, would lei me 

 know through you, Mr, Editor, m- through your valuable journal, 

 f would feel gratified, for simple us the medium is, I am sure 

 it bus not hud a fair trial, if any at all. 1 do nol think that the 

 mosquito would be extirpated by d, tut. the attack would he 

 greatly lessened I feel sure. I have seen some gardens in low- 

 lying flats I hollows in the Darjeeling district, closed by 



mosquito for two or three months of the manufacturing <■■ , 



and at that tun.- r never thought of trying the pi bove 



mentioned, or rather I should say of suggesting it, for the gar- 

 dens in question were not ill my charge. "(iREEN FLY. 1 '- hulian 



Tea i iazette: 



TEA IN AMBAGAMUWA.-No. I. 



CLOSE PLANTING FOR TEA — TBA PLANTED AMONGST COFFKK 

 — EXTIRPATION OF COFFEE AND CINCHONA TO MAKE 

 ROOM FOK TEA — CARDAMOMS — LIBERUN COFFEE— CACAO 

 — TEA FOND OF RAIN WITH HOT SUN AT INTERVALS — A 

 PERIOD OF RFST NEEDED FOR TEA — WHEN '10 PRUNE — 

 FREQUENCY OF PLUCKING — THE LABOR QUESTION — 

 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COFFEE AND TEA PRUNING. 



I take the earliest opportunity of correcting a mis- 

 apprehension of what was stated to me recently re- 

 garding close tea planting. It is at a high elevation 

 on the Kamboda Pass that such close planting as 

 8x2^ feet has been adopted. My informant knows 

 of nothing closer thau 3x4 ill the lowcountry. 



In journeying upcountry the traveller receives but an 

 imperf'Ct impression of the extent to which tea is 

 planted amongst coffee, unless he specially looks into 

 as well as at expanses of c iffee, amidst a large pro- 

 portion of which tea plants have been '* put ou 1 ".." 

 Where, as in some p^rts of Ambagamuwa, the coffee 

 is old and worn out, there is no difficulty : the coffee 

 trees being either rooted up or deprived of their prim- 

 aries. In the latter case the naked stems strikiugly 

 set off the succulent growth of the tea. In other cases 

 the coffee amidst which tea is planted is allowed to 

 grow until the tea plants are a couple of years old, 

 when a pretty common practice is to trim one row 

 of coffee plants, allowing a sucker to grow up and 

 bear a final crop or a couple of them, the intermediate 

 rows of coffee receiving similar treatment next season. 

 In some cases, however, the planter deems it best to 

 make up his mind to have only the one product on 

 his land, and so the coffee plants are ruthlessly rooted 

 out as cumberers of the ground and the land is lined 

 aficsh for tea. The extent to which both coffee and 

 cinchonas are being extirpated, in order to make room 

 for tea. will, ere long, render necessary a careful re- 

 vision of our statistics of Various products. Clumps of 

 cardamoms are, occasionally, curiously conspicuous, as 

 on some estates in lower Ambagamuwa, but the limits 

 of the cultivation of this spice cannot be very far 

 off The seeds, besides being used as condiments, 

 confections and carminatives, are, I understood, largely 

 employed in the manufacture of liqueurs. The rains 

 which had succeeded the prolonged and trying drought 

 had given new life to the Liberian coffee and cacao 

 we saw from the railway, the cacaos amongst the old 

 coffee on Moragalla, near the great tunnel, looking es- 

 pecially flourishing. Cacao is a most valuable addition 

 to our products, but its range of soil and climate is 

 limited as compared with the ubiquitous and cosmo- 

 politan tea plant, in which the future of Ceylon is 



