No. 4.] Rliynchota. 185 



this remedy by the statement of a planter that " even if destroyed on the 

 tea plants, the insects come in from the neighbouring jungle, which should 

 be burned down." Others say (Journ., I. c, vii, p. xlii) that clearing the 

 jungle is of no value. There is no precise record, however, in the whole 

 of the correspondence regarding this pest of the presence of the insect 

 on any plant other than tea or cinchona. 



Anointing the bushes with " tar " has been recommended and tried, 

 but abandoned, as it flavours the tea. Fumigation by burning bad- 

 smelling weeds is reported in some cases to have kept down the pest, 

 " but to do this successfully, the tila surroundings where they harbour and 

 breed must be cleared away and burned during the cold weather." 



The following extracts from correspondence bearing on this subject 

 may be of interest. Mr. Driver, while in Assam, had considerable 

 experience of the insect pest known as Mosquito blight, and he gives the 

 following description of it : — 



" The young ones generally appear in pairs. They are very small, and hide 

 themselves hy running under the leaves or down the stems. They suck the juice 

 from the new shoots, which shew small brown spots whereon punctured. 



*' If they are allowed to increase to any great extent, all the young shoots dry 

 up and the bushes appear as if their tops had been burnt. I think the eggs are laid 

 at the points where new shoots spring from the older stems, and they are hatched 

 in March, just about the time the new shoots begin to grow. They go on breed- 

 ing during the rains, but heavy rain washes them off the bushes and destroys them. 

 These insects are indigenous in Assam, and while in the jungles live on a creeper 

 known as the 'Jungly pan.' The jungly pan leaves a taste very like the pan of 

 commerce. The insect is called 'Woohonce' by the Assamese. These insects 

 thrive best under large shady trees, such as the rubber and wild fig. 



"To eradicate them the bushes have to be stripped of all their leaves, the ground 

 has to be deep-hoed, and people have to be put on to catch and kill by hand any that 

 appear after that." 



Mr. K. B. Walker, Manager, Sookerating Tea Estate, Doom Dooma, 

 Dibrugurh, writes :— 



" Now to reply to your inquiries about what we did to get rid of the ' Mosquitoes.' 

 To begin with, before we stopped plucking last year, and while the blight was at 

 its worst (about September and October), I started cnttiug down a ' belt' of jungle 

 80 yards wide all round the edge of the garden ; this ' belt ' was completed about 

 the same time as the pruning of the garden was finished (the end of February 

 this was) : well then I commenced lighting fires all over the place ; in the tea the 

 prunings were beiug reduced to ashes as rapidly as the cut-down jungle in the 

 ' belt ' was being burnt up ; by the middle of March I finished all the burning 

 I wanted to do, and then every soul was put on to hoe round the bushes, take 

 away all stale earth from near the stumps of the plants, and fill in fresh earth. 

 The pruning I went in for last cold weather was most severe : the whole of the garden 

 nearly was cut down to within eight inches of the ground ; all knotty and gnarled 

 wood was removed, and nothing but straight wood left. During the pruning, 

 immediately following up the pruners were gangs of women and children armed with 

 small knives whose only work was to rid the bushes of every leaf and small twig. 

 To protect the plants from the flames (while the prunings were being burnt) a drain 



