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the shelter of large trees. In all the valleys there were banana plantations. 

 As we came nearer to the coast the country changed into sandy flats, covered 

 with low jungle and clumps of cocoa-nut palms. As soon as I arrived at 

 Vera Cruz I called upon the Governor. Signor Velo, who advised me to visit 

 thr southern part of Mexico, and offered to give me a letter to his brother, 

 who had a large ranch-farm and orchard near the town of Coatxacualus, 

 about 100 miles down the coast by steamer. 



After making arrangements for a passage across to Havana the following 

 mail boat, seeing the British Consul, tkc., I left the next day for Coatxacualus, 

 and reached my destination on the following afternoon. Engaged ah Indian 

 to take me up to Signor Ignacio Yelo's in his canoe. We started off at once, 

 and, after some miles' paddling across the lagoons, and several miles' tramp 

 through black mud and water, reached the homestead. I found that all the 

 oranges in the orchard were seedlings, and one of the largest and finest 

 produced fruit as sour as vinegar. The soil was so rich and moist, that 

 many orange-trees were propagated by simply cutting out a large sucker, 

 and, after trimming it and cutting off the top, driving it into the ground like 

 a stake. 



The oranges were athered in a very primitive manner either by climbing 

 up a long notched pole resting against the tree, or by twisting off each fruit 

 with a long, slender pole, with a fork at the tip. Though there were a great 

 number of oranges lying about under the trees, I could find no traces of fnrit- 

 fly mai^'oN. si^nor Velo has about 6,000 acres of land. On part of this 

 he runs a herd of about 500 head of cattle, and supplies the town with milk. 

 On the swamp land he grows corral-grass, which he cuts and supplies as 

 green fodder for the nil way contractors' horses. In the plantation he has 

 vanilla growing, some coffee, which is dried and used on the ranch, and 

 about 700 cocoa-nut trees. About thirty peons and their families live on the 

 estate. 



One of the greatest pests on the plantations in Mexico, Cuba, Central 

 America, and Trinidad is the leaf-cutting ant, known as the " Bibijagau," 

 pronounced " Bebehowie " ( Atta inbular'i* and Atta cephalotis). They form 

 great underground chambers at the bottom of vertical shafts, often 8 feet in 

 depth, in which they store the fragments of leaves that they cut off the trees. 

 These nests are close together, and the excavated earth from beneath forms 

 great mounds, with many openings. From these openings regular armies of 

 these ants march out, and in the course of a few hours strip every leaf off an 

 orange-tree. If in the vicinity of a vegetable garden, they reduce it to an 

 ashheap in a very short time if once they become established, and the garden 

 must be carefully watched. It is a most remarkable sight to come across a 

 returning army of these large ants marching back to their nest, each with a 

 more or less rounded fragment of leaf held by the jaws over the back, almost 

 hiding the carrier underneath. 



The chief methods of getting rid of these ants is, first, setting to work and 

 digging then right out. At the Agricultural Experiment Station, in Santiago 

 de Vegas (Cuba), the officers used sulphur pumps ; but an orchardist said that 

 the most successful mixture he found was boiling tar and sulphur together, 

 and pouring the mixture down the openings leading into the nests. The 

 ants accumulate leaves in these semicircular burrows until they ferment and 

 produce a fungous growth upon which they and their larvae feed. The Legis- 

 lative Council of Trinidad passed an ordinance which enabled the Governor 

 to declare certain districts infested with this pest, to enable planters to take 

 measures for their destruction. 



