30 MONTHLY NOTES ON GRUBS AND OTHER CANE PESTS. 
CANE GRUB INVESTIGATION, FEBRUARY, 1919. 
The unprecedented dry weather, for this time of the year, is having 
a rather serious effect upon the late-planted cane. It is just the 
condition for the rapid development of the cane grubs, and they are 
already beginning to show by the yellowing of the cane in a few places at 
the Greenhills Estate. Out of 181 grey-back grubs picked up behind the 
plough, 22nd January, in Field E1 of ratoons, 68 were in the first stage, 
112 in the second, and one had already reached the third or final stage. 
Digging under the yellowing stools of ratoons in E2, 5th February, I 
found an average of six grubs, mostly in the second stage. This field is 
in the worst-infested area, and suffered severely last season, so it is not 
surprising to find that the infested, stools have no roots and ean be 
easily pulled out with one hand. 
It will be of interest to record that grey-back beetles were still in 
evidence on the feeding-trees, 5th February, and dissection showed that 
these stragglers were full of eggs. This was just about two months after 
the first beetles emerged in this district, so the period for cultural control 
has been somewhat extended. 
I have improved the opportunity during the past month for securing 
further data on controlling factors—both better cultural methods, and 
the all-important one of feeding-trees. 
BENEFITS OF INTENSIVE CULTURAL METHODS. 
Recently I was most gratified by an interview with Mr. David 
Hunter, a man of long experience in the sugar industry on the Johnstone, 
whose record as a grower has been so successful, especially in the handling 
of grub-infested land, that his observations should have the greatest 
value. 
Mr. Hunter first came to the district about twenty-eight years 
ago, taking charge of land for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, 
which grew its own cane at that time. He was quick to notice the value 
of filter-press on cane land, and became an advocate of intensive surface 
cultivation. 
About 1906 he took up one of the company’s farms, which had been 
thrown out of cultivation for years because of the grubs. This pest 
had been so severe in the early days that the land was not considered 
profitable to grow cane; hence he got the place on very reasonable terms, 
and, being near the mill, he made arrangements for the complete output 
of compost. Mr. Hunter began applying this in 1908, and by thorough 
cultivation soon had the farm in perfect tilth, with not a weed in sight 
anywhere, and he kept the cultivators going so that none would show. 
I was interested to learn that Mr. Hunter believes filter-press is 
rather attractive to grubs, and that he found ammonium sulphate to be 
the opposite. Anyway, he says that he has seen cane treated with this 
latter chemical standing and perfect, while untreated cane alongside had 
fallen because of the grubs. He does not agree with the usual statement, 
