128 INSECT MANUFACTURES, 



The plantations of cochineal cultivated by M. 

 Thierry, at St. Domingo, were so successful that 

 in 1789 there were more than four thousand plants 

 in a single nopalerie, and the produce was ascer- 

 tained by chemists to be quite equal to that of 

 Mexico ; but at the time of the French Revolution, 

 the political troubles of St. Domingo caused the 

 destruction of the plantations. Cochineal has 

 been cultivated with some success in several of 

 the British West India islands. Thus the Rev. 

 L. Guilding, writing a few years ago to Dr. 

 Hooker, says, " I possess a considerable nursery 

 of this cactus, inhabited by thousands of the true 

 Coccus cacti, and I do not despair of being able to 

 send to the Society of Arts a large quantity of 

 dried insects before the termination of the present 

 year." 



So important was the acquisition of this insect 

 to the East India Company, that they offered a 

 reward of six thousand pounds to any one who 

 should introduce it into India, where hitherto the 

 Company had only succeeded in procuring from 

 Brazil the wild kind producing the syhestre cochi- 



