14 THE AGRICULTURAL PESTS OF INDIA. 



somewhat, but nothing to account for the crop falling off 

 to half the previous yield. 



India and Ceylon agriculturists are not solitary 

 sufferers. In England the annual yield of the hop 

 plantations, as the Edinburgh Review tells us, is about 

 7 cwt. per acre. But a serious blight occurred in 1882, 

 and it was estimated that the whole produce of the hop 

 land in England (65,619 acres) did not exceed 114,839 

 cwt., or an average yield of Ij cwt. per acre. The 

 injury inflicted on the hop growers in that year by the 

 hop aphis (Aphis humuli), one of the ten different genera 

 of insects that attack the hops, amounted to the value of 

 2,700,000. 



Eussia has not escaped. The yield of its corn crops 

 sunk from the rate of 8*3 bushels per acre in 1875 to 

 that of 5*1 bushels per acre in 1883, from the ravages of 

 insect swarms. 



In France the phylloxera, which has infested the vine- 

 yard in 53 departments, made its first appearance in 

 1865, and was reported on in 1884. The vineyard 

 surface existing before the malady was 2,485,829 hectares, 

 but at the time of the 1884 report it was reduced to 

 2,056,713 hectares. Measured by the production of 

 wine, the yield of 1874 was 63,000,000 hectolitres. In 

 1879 it sank to less than 26,000,000, but in 1884 it 

 recovered to 35,000,000. 



The Commissioner of Agriculture for the United States 

 has mentioned in his report of 1874 (page 164) that 

 their annual losses of cotton from ravages of cotton insects 

 amount possibly to half a million bales in years of insect 

 prevalence. One-fourth of a million bales, he says, would 

 be deemed a light infliction, and yet, at $100 per bale, 

 such a loss would be equivalent to $25,000,000. Again, 



