PESTS 281 



Ultimately the worst-affected trees were cut down and burned in 

 order to prevent the pest increasing when the eggs the insects 

 had deposited in the wood of the trees were hatched out. While 

 many planters have asserted that only dead or dying trees are 

 attacked by these beetles, the facts undoubtedly point the other 

 way. The illustration given of an attacked tree which shows 

 the latex freely escaping from the holes made by the beetles 

 proves this, and so does the experience of several well-known 

 managers. 



Wild pigs are more troublesome in Java than anywhere else, 

 and several estates have had to spend a good deal of money on 

 the erection of substantial fencing with eleven strands of wire 

 to exclude them. 



Monkeys and deer are ubiquitous, but, although trouble- 

 some, can be kept under, and the damage that they do is seldom 

 very extensive. Porcupines do a lot of damage among seed- 

 lings in Ceylon, and the only way of dealing with them is to 

 keep plenty of watchmen with guns on the lookout at nights. 



In Samoa, and to a smaller extent in Sumatra, rats have 

 been found to be exceedingly troublesome on many rubber 

 estates and have done great damage. The writer has seen 

 cases where young plants have been so badly gnawed that 

 replanting has had to be done over considerable areas and the 

 seedlings and stumps protected against further attack. Zinc 

 cylinders on the joints of bamboos have proved an efficient 

 protection in such cases, and made planting, previously more 

 than precarious, possible. Such attacks are most troublesome 

 and most difficult to check on estates which are not kept in a 

 clean weeded condition. 



