674 PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



when part of it is felled and a clearing made. Before the seedlings of 

 the forest trees have had time to grow and fill up the blanks, intro- 

 duced by the agency of birds, Lantana springs up rapidly and in a short 

 time covers the clearing so densely as to choke the seedlings altogether. 



Around villages in the infested areas, it forms dense thickets giving 

 shelter to wild animals, and also conduces by the cover it provides to 

 make the village surroundings extremely insanitary. In the Malnad 

 area of Mysore, it is believed that malaria has increased in virulence 

 €ver suice Lantana occupied the open areas and tended to the conser- 

 vation of moisture to a much larger degree. 



Although owing to the above reasons most people condemn it as 

 an injurious weed, there is also an opposite camp that holds that it is 

 really a blessing in disguise. According to them, the plant has great 

 soil-renovating properties. Under the dense cover of its thickets, the 

 soil-moisture is conserved and by the huge mass of leaves shed by the 

 plant in the course of a decade a rich humus is formed. One has simply 

 to cut the Lantana, set fire to it when fairly dry and plough the ashes 

 in and the land is fit for any crop — coffee, tea or orange. It is reported 

 that soils, which before the advent of Lantana had been unfit for any- 

 thing, have since been converted into virgin soils in which anything 

 coidd be grown. The ashes are reported to be rich in potash and func- 

 tion as a valuable manure. Lantana is also believed to be a valuable 

 nurse for sandal. 



However, it is only in moist areas where any vegetation will flourish 

 that Lantana thrives, and in dry areas where its soil-improving proper- 

 ties would be of the greatest value, it does not grow, so that its much- 

 vaunted quahties do not come into play where they are really needed. 

 In forests, the part it takes in the spread of fires is enough to stamp, 

 it as a noxious weed of the worst degree. 



Lantana destruction. 

 When undertaken at the very outset extermination • of Lantana 

 by mere mechanical means is quite feasible, but when — as is the case 

 in many places — it has become established over extensive areas it 

 becomes a very expensive and almost impossible measure. In the 

 plateau of Chikalda in Berar, the plant had been introduced in 1865 

 and by 1890 it had not only spread all over the tableland .but had 

 extended into the forests along the slopes. Control measures were 

 undertaken in 1893 and, in the course of ten years, more than 

 Rs. 25,000 had been spent in uprooting Lantana. As the number of 

 plants had become considerably diminished, operations were stopped in 

 1903. 



