Some Enemies of our Cane-fields.'** 



By S. /?. Cochran, Manager, Plan. Versailles. 



|HEN asked early in the year, by our esteemed 

 President, to prepare a paper on an Agricul- 

 cultural Subjeft, to be read before the Society. 

 I accepted with some diffidence, thinking that anything 

 I could put before you, would be wanting in interest. 

 If however, the few notes I have put together, mostly 

 from personal observation, are of any interest, I shall be 

 amply rewarded. 



The subje6l I have chosen, " Some enemies of our 

 Cane-fields," is a somewhat wide one and for convenience 

 may be divided into several heads, viz. : beasts, inse6ls, 

 weeds, grasses and sedges, unfavourable seasons, and 

 scarcity of labour. Of the animal plagues of the cane 

 the rat (Mus decumanus) may well take the first place, 

 as it gnaws through the young shoots close to the ground 

 and totally destroys them. Ripe canes are also attacked 

 and eaten almost through, causing them either to rot 

 and die, or by allowing the air to get into the juice, spoil 

 it for manufacture. I have seen considerable damage 

 done in this way in Berbice, where in the dry seasons 

 the rats left the savannahs for the fields and did serious 

 injury, entailing great expense to keep them in check. 



Of other wild animals the water-haas (Hydrochoerus 

 Capyhara) is perhaps the most destructive, though 

 luckily not so plentiful ; these go in small herds and 

 will do a great deal of damage in even one night. 



* Read before the May Meeting of the Society. 



