LANTANA 781 



from moist regions where the rainfall exceeds 200 in. to comparatively drj- 

 localities where it is as low as 30 in. It flourishes equally well on flat and on 

 hilly ground, and on a variety of soils, including poor gravel and laterite. 

 The plant is light-loving, but w.U grow under moderate shade. It is very 

 tenacious of hfe, coppicing vigorously and producing root-suckers, which 

 necessitates very thorough uprooting to prevent the reappearance of shoots. 

 It regenerates freely from seed, and a severe fire or a succession of fires is 

 necessary to prevent seedHngs appearing in profusion. It burns readily, even 

 when green, and after a fire it recovers rapidly, soon becoming as dense as ever. 



Nowhere has the lantana become so troublesome as in the south-western 

 portion of the Indian Peninsula, in Coorg, parts of Mysore, the Nilgiris, and 

 elsewhere. In Coorg alone the estimated areas of different classes of land 

 infested by lantana in 1912 were : private land, 70,400 acres, of M^hich 35,000 

 acres had been cleared ; Government waste land, 40,000 acres ; reserved 

 forests, 74,000 acres. An extensive scheme for eradicating lantana over an 

 area of 63,200 acres in reserved forests and other Government lands in Coorg 

 was drawn up in 1914, but owing to the outbreak of war in that year the 

 scheme was held in abeyance. This scheme, extending over a period of eleven 

 or twelve years, was estimated to cost Rs. 4,40,000. This figure indicates 

 the magnitude of the task involved in deahng with the pest once it spreads, 

 and the necessity for eradicating it as soon as it makes its appearance in any 

 locahty and before it gets out of control. So serious has the lantana question 

 become in Coorg that it has led to the passing of a special enactment entitled 

 The Coorg Noxious Weeds Regulation, 1914. 



The eradication of lantana in Coorg has been the subject of detailed 

 experiment by Mr. H. Tireman, who has pubhshed an interesting paper on 

 the subject.^ The most practicable method so far evolved is to burn the 

 lantana about February or March, cut it about a foot above ground, roll the 

 cut material away from the stumps and burn it, the stumps being then dug 

 up at the commencement of the rainy season when the ground is soft ; the 

 lantana is shallow-rooted, and in many cases the stumps can be pulled up by 

 hand in soft ground. Uprooting of the regrowth is necessary for two or some- 

 times three or four years after the first cutting. The average cost of the work 

 is Rs. 7 to Rs. 8 per acre for the principal clearing, or where the lantana is 

 exceptionally dense as much as Rs. 12 per acre. For uprooting the regrowth 

 the cost varies from 12 annas to Rs. 1-8-0 per acre in the second year, and is 

 about 6 annas in the third year, and slightly less in the fourth year. 



In parts of Madras elephants have been trained to pull up lantana, the 

 full-grown animals pulling the shrubs up by curling their trunks round them, 

 and the younger ones pulling at a chain at the end of which is a hook fixed 

 into the roots of the shrub ; this operation, however, requires to be followed 

 by a further eradication by hand, repeated at intervals. In practice the use 

 of elephants is possible only on a limited scale. 



The question of destroying lantana or preventing its spread by the aid of 

 natura' insect enemies, both indigenous and introduced, is under investigation, 

 but the introduction of foreign insect enemies, such as the Agromyza fly, 

 which destroys lantana seed in the Hawaiian Islands, is a measure requiring 



1 Ind. Forester, xlii (1916), p. 385. 



