COFFEE AND COTTON INJUKIES. 13 



State forwarded on that letter to the Government of 

 India, and sent a copy of it to the Journal of the Society 

 of Arts, in which it appeared on the 13th of November 

 1885, with an accompanying letter from Miss Ormerod 

 supporting my views. The extent to which agricultural 

 produce is destroyed by animal and vegetable pests may 

 receive a few illustrations. The annual crop of cotton of 

 British India may be estimated at 6,419,718 cwt., 

 valued at seven crores of rupees. I have seen, I think in 

 the Zoologist, a statement by the United States Agricul- 

 tural Commissioner, to the effect that in parts of India 

 one-fourth of the cotton crop is sometimes lost from the 

 ravages of the larvre of one insect, the Depressaria 

 gossipiella. In Ceylon the loss to the coffee planters 

 from several tiny vegetable and animal pests was great ; 

 but that industry was finally ruined by a fungus, the 

 Hemileia -vastatrix, which spread through the island and 

 the plantations in the Peninsula. Mr. Thiselton Dyer, 

 in a letter dated Kew, 12th January 1881, addressed to 

 the Colonial Office, mentions as an estimate by the Kev. 

 E. Abbay for the five years up to 1871, that the average 

 yield of coffee in Ceylon had been 4*5 cwt. per acre, 

 whilst for the five succeeding years the average had been 

 only 2*2 cwt. Also, that for the ten years 1869 to 

 1878, Mr. Abbay had estimated the total loss due to the 

 leaf disease at from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000, 

 The ' Acreage under Coffee ' after 1 8 7 * had decreased 



Acreage under Coffee. 

 * 1870, . . . 203,909 



1871, 

 1872, 

 1873, 

 1884, 

 1885, 



196,881$ 



182,342 

 177,980 

 231,976 

 192,434 



