PLANTATIONS 



had long before devised a means of defence. But when the 

 Phylloxera was smuggled into Europe it encountered the European 

 vine, which was unacquainted with the pest, and it destroyed large 

 areas of vineyard. In a state of Nature there are no noxious and no 

 useful animals ; each rather contributes to the harmony of the whole ; 

 it is a cog in the great mechanism ; otherwise it would not have been 

 created. 



Man disturbs the equihbrium of Nature, firstly, by introducing 

 plants and animals to areas to which they do not rightly belong, thus 

 meddling, so to speak, with a completed mechanism ; and secondly, 

 by perverting Nature, which is essentially many-sided, inasmuch as 

 he allows only one particular plant to grow over wide areas of land. 

 Thus, the Rosy Caterpillar was first smuggled into Egypt, where in 

 1 9 10 it destroyed whole crops of cotton, and then into Brazil, 



I very soon realized, when I began my investigation of Brazilian 

 cotton and its pest, that in the interior of north-eastern Brazil 

 nothing much could be effected by means of chemical warfare. A 

 poisonous spray would not reach the caterpillars concealed in the 

 capsule ; moreover, the areas were too great for the use of sprays, 

 and the people were unaccustomed to exact and methodical methods 

 of cultivation. When I once told a fazendeiro that he was losing 

 perhaps 40 per cent, of his crop through the ravages of the cater- 

 pillar, he smilingly replied that in that case he would plant 40 per 

 cent. more. 



The natural means of combating the pest were therefore indicated 

 in this region, and in order to discover what enemies the caterpillars 

 had, I reared them in gauze-covered breeding-cages. I discovered 

 various Ichneumons, tiny black wasps, which puncture the cater- 

 pillar (Fig. 23), and lay their eggs in its body; these eggs hatch into 

 larvae, which devour the living tissues of their host until they them- 

 selves are ripe for pupation. Again, there are small Ladybirds which 

 eat the eggs and young caterpillars; and there are also two birds, 

 the Sebito (Plate 28, 6) and the Cagasebito, which I often saw 

 flying from pod to pod and pulling out the shiny brown pupae of the 

 Rosy Caterpillar. 



I was able to show that when these birds and insects were enabled 

 to visit the cotton-fields the damage done was not excessive. This, 

 for example, was the case in the Sertao. There the cotton-plant is 

 cultivated simply as a sort of undergrowth in a natural environment, 

 and the variety grown there is the "Moco," which lives from five to 

 thirty years, producing its pods annually as a fruit-tree bears its fruit. 



153 



