60 COCONUT PLANTER'S MA.NUAL. 



"CHIPPING" AS A REMEDY, 



A correspondent writing to the Tropical Agriculturist Supplement 

 of April, 1 907, says ; — -I have always found the following plan cheap and 

 effective. Provide young weeders with sharp-edged weeding currandies 

 and let them chip the illuk down level with the ground, repeating 

 this over and over again as soon as say 3 inches of growth appears _ 

 In three months or so all the roots below ground will die out. I have 

 tried forking out the roots and other means of eradication, but found 

 the chipping back process the cheapest and surest way. [The repeated 

 cutting, as Mr. Bamber explains in his note on spraying, tends to 

 exhaust the reserve food stored up in the thickened underground roots.] 



SPRAYING ILLUK. 



The August, 1907, number of the Tropical Agriculturist contains a 

 communication from Mr. M. Kelway Bamber, Government Agricul- 

 tural Chemist, in which he states that he and Mr. J. B. Carruthers, late 

 of Peradeniya, conducted experiments in the spraying of illuk with 

 Arsenite of Soda, which are reported to have proved successful. The 

 difficulty in this treatment is that the substance is very poisonous 

 and care must be taken that cattle do not eat any of the treated 

 grass. The method of preparation and treatment are as follows : — 



2'88 lbs. washing soda are dissolved and boiled in 3 gallons of 

 water ; 2 lbs. arsenic are slowly stirred in, the liquid being kept boiling 

 till the arsenic is dissolved. This is then diluted to 20 gallons as a 

 stock solution. 



For use 2 pints of this are diluted with 5 gallons water and this is 

 sprayed on the grass, or it can be put on by means of a cloth, one end 

 of which dips in a trough on wheels containing the solution, the other 

 trailing on the grass and kept spread out by means of a rod. 



The grass can be first burnt oft". When new shoots are 8 or 9 inches 

 high the wet cloth is drawn over them and kills them in 48 hours. 

 This must be repeated eveiy time new shoots appear, the object being 

 to exhaust the roots of all the starchy matter and so kill the plants 

 entirely. 



