[48 ! SOI Ml INDIAN INSECTS, ETC. [CHAP. XV. 



; young twigs. The only control method which can be 

 advised at present is a vigorous attack on this scale immediately 



iticed, to endeavour to keep it at least within bounds; rosin 

 compound is probably the best insecticide to apply. The shade- 

 trees of coffee estates suffer from various scales, which may affei t 

 the coffee as well as the shade-trees ; the only satisfactory control- 

 is to eliminate all varieties of trees which are subject to 

 such attacks. Cotton is attacked by three or four Scale-ii 

 sometimes very heavily indeed, but the attack is usually quite 

 localized, often confined to a single plant, and such plants arc best 

 pulled out and burnt, their neighbours being examined at the 

 same tunc to see whether they have been infected also. Except in 

 i permanent crops, such as coffee, tea, rubber, fruit- 

 trees and palms. Scale-insects are of comparatively little importance 

 in Southern India, but in the case of such permanent crops they 

 maj do great damage and every endeavour should be made to 

 check outbreaks of Scale-insects at the very beginning, as soon as 

 they are noticed, and before serious damage has occurred; for the 

 rate ol increase of these little ins rapid that, by sheer 



numbers, great damage ma> be done in spite of their minute size 

 individually. In particular, great care should be taken that, when 

 fruit-trees or garden plants are brought from a distance, the\ 

 have not brought .my of these insects with them, and this end 

 can only be achieved by insistence on proper fumigation of the 

 plants by the sender before despatch. 



