198 



COFFEE 



planters as the coffee bug, but in reality a species of coccus, 

 which establishes itself on young shoots and buds, covering 

 them with a noisome incrustation of scales, from the influence 

 of which the fruit shrivels and drops off. A great part of the 

 crop is sometimes lost, and on many trees not a single berry 

 forms from the invasion of this pest, which was first observed 

 in 1843 on an estate at Lapalla Galla, and thence spreading 

 eastward through other plantations, finally reached all the other 

 estates in the island. No cheap and effectual remedy has as 

 yet been found to stay its ravages, and the only hope is, that as 

 other blights have been known to do, it may wear itself out, 

 and vanish as mysteriously as it came. 



General Fraser's Coffee-estate at Rangbodde, Ceylon. 



