CULTITEE OF SILKWORMS. » 



mulberries iu China, but perhaps the climate here may be 

 particularly suited to the development of the fungus, while in 

 China it is not, and the disease there may be sporadic, and do 

 Uttle or no damage. Mulberries were introduced into Perak 

 from India at least eleven years ago, and I have examined a 

 number of these trees and have not seen a single spot of disease 

 on any of them. This shows that the disease is not indigenous 

 to Perak, Imt that it was brotight along with the cuttings from 

 China, and I raised the question whether the two small planta- 

 tions which had been started at Aver Kuning, and which were 

 both badly affected by the disease, should not be destroyed 

 before it spread further, or at least measures taken to disinfect 

 them. 



Another question which suggested itseK was, whether the 

 mulberries which were introduced from India, and which are 

 apparently both of different varieties to that recently introduced 

 from China, are susce])tible in the same degree to the ravages of 

 the disease. To test this I gave young plants of both kinds of 

 these Indian mulberries to the Chinese, and afterwards also to 

 Mr. Light, requesting that they might be planted amongst the 

 affected bushes. Some two months afterwards I examined these 

 plants and found that they had contracted the disease equally 

 with the Chinese mulberries amongst which they were planted, 

 thus proving that they were not proof against the disease and 

 that had the disease been indigenous to the country they would 

 have caught it during the eleven years they have been here. 



INSECTS DESTRUCTIVE TO THE MULBERRY. 

 So far, I have only noticed one insect which does any con- 

 siderable amovmt of damage to the mulberry bushes. This is 

 the common yellow and green diamond beetle. It damages them 

 when in the imago state, by eating the leaves. At certain times 

 of the year they are very abundant and do serious injury to 

 orange, lime, lemon and pomeloe trees. 



RAMI AS A FOOD PLANT. 



A paragraph having gone the rounds of the newspapers to 

 the effect that it had been found that rami (China grass-cloth 

 ])lant) had been successfully used as a food for silkworms, and 

 that they not only throve on it but that the yield of silk was 

 largely increased, I tried the experiment, and found that not 

 only the worms that had been fed on mulberry, but also the 

 newly hatched ones, which had not previously been fed at all, 

 absolutely refused to eat it, preferi'ing death by starvation. I 

 tried cut and also crushed leaves with the same result. There 

 would therefore appear to be no doubt that rami cannot be used 



