1 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL MEASURES. 



The basket is an adjunct to hand-picking when it is possible to shake 

 insects off the plants into the baskets and then into a tin of kerosene and 

 water, as recommended for the Red Cotton Bug (page 104). It is useful 

 for weevils and plant-feeding beetles. 



The net takes the place of the bag in some cases, as when catching 

 the Banded Blister Beetle. What is required is a bag of cloth cut as 

 figured (page 289) and sewn lip, fastened to a slip of bamboo that is lashed 

 to a short handle. The component parts are very simple, the net easily 

 made and it does good service in gardens and small holdings where such 

 insects abound. The practice of trenching has been mentioned above ; it is 

 useful when one is catching caterpillars with bags as many escape the bag, 

 wander about the soil and fall into the trench, where they can be killed. 



Baits of cut vegetation are useful traps. Many injurious insects hide 

 during part of the day and will do so in bunches of green vegetation, if 

 these are laid about the field. The bunches must be examined periodically 

 and the assembled insects shaken off into hot water or kerosene and water. 



Lights are useful traps for a few insects, especially for such as fly at 

 night. Their use is very limited and fires are often as useful. The light 

 trap consists of an ordinary kerosene lamp hung over a broad tray contain- 

 ing jaggery and water or water with a film of kerosene. Two bent pieces 

 of tin serve as reflectors. Cockchafers, some moths, ants and a few 

 other insects are generally captured and the trap has a value in certain 

 specific cases. 



Smoke is a deterrent to some insects, notably such as attack rice and 

 other dense crops in which smoke hangs well. The smoke of a few fires 

 will not kill anything, but may drive out such an insect as the Eice Bug 

 at a critical moment when the grain is forming. The same applies to 

 cockchafers, which attack grain crops just as they are ripening and which 

 have to be kept off until they die naturally or until the grain is hard 

 enough to resist them. 



Cultivation in the form of hoeing, surface ploughing, etc., is valuable 

 chiefly in exposing insects to birds or weather and is less a remedial 

 measure than a preventive of attack ; many insects that eat crops harbour 

 in the soil or descend there to pupate ; when this is the case cultivation 

 turns out many to become the food of mynas. 



Other simple remedies are discussed above under " Preventives/'' A 

 great deal can often be done to check a pest by sacrificing a portion of the 

 crops that is first infested or by sacrificing a young crop with the insects 

 on, in the hope that a second crop will grow up free of the insects. A 

 caterpillar-infested crop can often be wisely fed off to cattle or cut down, 

 when a new crop is likely to come up. 



