of Southern India. ]23 



bad cultivation reduced the vital powers of the plant to 

 a minimum, and the severe drought of past years then 

 furnished the special influence that caused the pest to 

 increase to such an extent. There is no other rational 

 method of accounting for a scourge that has appeared 

 simultaneously in so many districts so far removed from 

 each other, and under such varying circumstances. At 

 the same time, there is no doubt that, when once the 

 disease has appeared on an estate, it will not confine 

 itself to sickly plants, but, when these have been used 

 up, extend its ravages to the most vigorous and healthy. 

 That a general debility in the cofiee-plant has been a 

 powerful predisposing cause is, I think, sufficiently evi- 

 dent from the following considerations : — 



(a.) Plants purposely or accidentally manured (such 

 as those around coolie lines), and thus in vigorous health, 

 rarely suffer much from Borer, while others in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood, in which this condition is absent, 

 suffer severely. 



(6.) Plants on newly opened estates, in which the soil 

 has not been exhausted, escape entirely, or sufier but 

 slightly. 



(c.) Plants on dry, barren, and exposed ridges suffer 

 soonest and most severely. Shade does not appear to 

 protect plants from Borer in Coorg, and, although it did, 

 the climate of a great portion of the district is such as to 

 render its use impracticable, the shutting out of light and 

 air by it during the rains, when the plants and atmo- 

 sphere are saturated with moisture, and the heavy drip 

 rendering the coffee sickly and unproductive. In bam- 

 boo lands, and places where the monsoon is less heavy, 

 however, it may prove useful. I may mention one 

 curious and suggestive fact regarding shade that was 

 brought to my notice by a planter. When shade was 

 talked of some time ago, he tried an experiment on a 

 small portion of the estate with the charcoal-tree {Sponia 

 Wightii) to afford shade, and the result was that the 

 charcoal-tree was riddled with Borer, while the coffee 

 escaped entirely. This result would seem to support a 

 proposition, enunciated by the late Inspector General 

 Macpherson, who had given great attention to coffee 

 culture, viz., ' that the Borer had attacked the coffee 

 because the trees in which it used to live in the jungle 

 had been cut down.^ It is quite possible there may be 

 some truth in this, but, at all events, the rearing of belts 

 of the charcoal-tree on estates, so as to afford shelter 



