5(5 The Tea insects of India. 



and quantity of sulphur used, I calculate the affected bushes amounted to just 3 per cent. 

 With a little more sulphur I could have checked the disease over the remainder of the 138 

 acres, for I am glad to say the 72 acres are now quite free, whereas the rest have perhaps 

 10 per cent, of the bushes red. The 11 acres treated with sulphur and lime which I 

 reported as unsuccessful last year have at least 50 per cent, attacked. 



" Now that I know more about sulphur and its effects, I am convinced I made a great 

 mistake in not applying it immediately after pruning. I have several reasons for saying 

 so, amongst which are — (1) Red spider must hybernate somewhere in the hush ; it cannot 

 come spontaneously. One invai'iably sees it start on the old leaves, and work gradually 

 up to the new growth which is always the last attacked, and I should not be surprised to 

 learn that it remained through the cold weather in the harlc. Therefore an application of 

 sulphur in January ought to be as successful as in March. (2) The sulphur would go very 

 much further on newly-pruned bushes, and would also search out the hark, which it can- 

 not do after the leaves form a covering. Moreover, there would be no fear of heavy rain 

 for at least two months, nor would there be the high winds of February and March which 

 waste a good deal of sulphur. (3) Although Mr. Cotes is not convinced on the subject, I 

 still hold to my opinion that sulphur has an influence on blight. My experience of this 

 year is exactly that of ]&st,~ viz., that on the sulphured area there is still no blight, but 

 a good deal on other places ; in fact it is unusually bad for the early season of year." 



The following is an extract from an interesting report by Mr. A. H. 



Late pruning versus red spider. ^^'^^^ "P^^ the subject of late pruning as a 



check on red spider in Assam. It has been 

 furnished through the kindness of Messrs. Barry & Co.^ 



8th May 1893.—" The weather has been unusually cold for time of year. Red spider 

 has also been showing on parts of gardens, but is getting less. The gardens promise well, 

 and with suitable weather should soon make up and pass last year. 



" In connection with red spider, it may be of interest to you to note that this blight 

 rarely, if ever, attacks bushes pruned after the last week in March. For three years I 

 have kept small plots of bushes unpruned till last week of March, and this year I kept 

 some 30 acres unpruned till after third week of March, the difference of the plots so 

 treated being now very marked ; that portion of same plot early pruned being more or 

 less covered with blight, and the later pruned throwing out shoots without a sign of 

 blight. 



" My neighbour at Coolie Kusie has tried the same experiment with so far like result, 

 I am of opinion that late pruning— not before first week in April preferably — will be found 

 the best remedy or rather preventative for this blight ; the bushes liable to it will pro- 

 bably get the blight on them before they are pruned, but the pruning will remove a good 

 deal, and the bush will throw out shoots straight away without a check. 



" Blighted bushes give little or no leaf for several weeks, and the little leaf given 

 before they become attacked by the blight, would probably be more than made up by the 

 unpruned bush up to beginning of April. 



" I am referring to ordinary or light-pruned tea ; heavy pruning is probably best done 

 early, and, further, red spider does not attack heavy-pruned tea as a rule." 



Mites other than Red Spider.— In India red spider {Tetrany- 

 chis bioculafus, W. M.) is the only mite which has hitherto been recorded 

 as attacking the tea plant, but in Ceylon the two totally distinct species 

 TypTilodromus carinaius and Acarus translttcens have been discovered by 



' It should be observed that in Ceylon a bad attack of red spider is said to be very 

 liable to follow a few months after heavy m-mimg {vide Gveen, Insect Pests, No, 7). — 

 E. C. C. 



