444 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 6 



the fields to the mill. After the cane is cut, it is placed in steel barges, 

 which are towed along the canal and finally pass into the mill, where 

 the cane is lifted by slings on to the carrier. 



The cane is grown in beds about thirty feet wide. These beds. are 

 separated by small ditches one to two feet wide. The ditching is 

 necessary as the soil is heavy and the drainage poor. The rows of 

 cane usually run crosswise of the bed, but in some fields where the 

 land is not quite so heavy and the drainage is consequently better, 

 the rows of cane are lengthwise of the bed. This arrangement 

 might permit of mechanical cultivation Avhich is not possible where 

 the cane is grown in short rows. 



Labor is one of the most serious problems on the plantations as the 

 native Indians will not work, the negroes are unreliable and it is only 

 the indentured coolie labor from India that can be relied upon. These 

 men must work for five years without remuneration, the only expense 

 to the employer being the cost of the laborer's passage from India 

 and his subsistence. During the next five years, the coolie receives 

 the average market wage per day, minus one shilling (24c.) but must 

 pay this shilhng even on days that he does not work. At the end of 

 ten years he is free to return to India, or move to town, or to any 

 other estate. Coolies newly arrived from India can not be used for the 

 hand control of insect pests because of their religious scruples, but 

 boys of the second generation, born in the colony, prefer this work 

 to any other. 



In Trinidad the labor supply is much as in Demerara, as the coolies 

 do most of the work, although sometimes natives and negroes are 

 seen at work in the fields. 



The cane in Trinidad is grown in a comparatively restricted area 

 along the west coast between Port-of-Spain and San Fernando. The 

 land is better drained, higher and of better texture than in Demerara. 

 The cane is grown in level beds with the rows lengthwise of the bed, 

 but despite the fact that the drainage ditches do not cut up the 

 fields any more than in Louisiana, mechanical cultivation is seldom 

 attempted. 



The agricultural practice most noticeable is that of abandoning cane 

 fields that are not producing a profitable tonnage. Even on the best 

 managed and more profitable estates, one sees fields abandoned, 

 growing up to weeds and grass, and pastured to oxen, with a few stalks 

 of cane remaining to show what was the former crop. Upon the 

 froghopper, Tomaspis varia Fabr., the most serious insect pest of 

 cane in Trinidad, a bug that stunts or kills the cane by sucking the 

 juice from the roots, is placed the blame' for the abandonment of 

 these fields. It is easy to see, however, that in an industry as un- 



