134 THE DATE PALM. 



The disease has not yet been seen among the Arabian trees 

 at Lyallpur, Rakhchhabri, and Charata in Dera 

 cases of attack by Ghazi Khan ; nor in the Central Jail, Multan 

 plantations. In 1914 in a plantation of 250 

 trees approximately in Muzaffargarh, some seven trees were 

 attacked. All received some treatment. One of these died. 

 In 1915 in the same plantation some 16 trees were affected. In 

 many of the cases it was the suckers at the bases of the trees that 

 were attacked. This was to be expected as the tissues of suckers 

 are particularly soft and juicy. All these affected plants were 

 treated by syringing an emulsion of oil of Toria (Brass ica cam- 

 pestris var. toria, Duthie) and asafcetida into the holes made in 

 the trees by the pest, and stopping the mouth of the holes by fibre 

 dipped in tar. Some of the more weakly suckers died but no 

 mother tree succumbed. In the case of the recent severe attack 

 referred to above suckers had been removed in September from 

 180 trees and the wounds on the mother trees had not been tarred 

 nor apparently properly earthed up. As about 80 of the plants, 

 i.e., 44 per cent, of them were at once attacked the case was 

 most serious. 



So far as we can find from records, this is the first time on 

 which a considerable number of suckers have been removed 

 from date trees in the Punjab, and the effects of red weevil 

 on the parent trees noted, but even if the percentage of trees 

 attacked by red weevil were to be far less than in the case' 

 quoted when wounds caused by the removal of suckers are left 

 exposed and untreated, it will still be of vital importance to 

 date-growers to tar all such wounds immediately the suckers 

 are removed. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that 

 while this simple and inexpensive procedure will prevent red 

 weevils from attacking these wounds, it is extremely difficult 

 to prevent the insect from materially harming the tree for 

 years, or killing it altogether once it gets in. It may also 

 be noticed here that so far there seems to be no evidence 

 to prove that the Rhinoceros beetle is connected with this 

 attack. 



