610 SUGAR-CANE SUGAR-CANE 



Yield— Tons op Sugar Produced in the World, 1900 to 1906. Estimated by Willett and Gray, New York. 



Enemies. 



The sugar-cane crop is subject to the depreda- 

 tions of animals, insects and fungous parasites. 

 Of the animal pests the rat is the most important. 

 It is combated by the usual means, and, besides, is 

 fought by fire and the mongoose. When burning 

 off trash it is possible to entrap the rats of infested 

 fields in a circle of fire. This is sometimes done 

 most successfully. Opinion is divided as to the 

 mongoose. The drawback to its introduction is 

 the fact that it attacks poultry and native birds 

 and useful small animals. By some these depreda- 

 tions are reckoned more than to offset any good it 

 may do in destroying rats. There is no way of 

 exterminating the mongoose, once it is introduced. 



Insects. — The list of insect enemies of the cane 

 is a rather formidable one. The worst are the bor- 

 ers, for the most part the larvae of beetles. These 

 are fought by hand-picking and by agricultural 

 methods, such as the rotation of crops, or the rest- 

 ing of the land, or the use of fire in destroying the 

 "rotten" cane-stalks, which at considerable expense 

 are sometimes gathered together and burned in 

 heaps. Borers are sometimes hand-picked at a cost 

 of hundreds of dollars per annum. Occasionally 

 trap-crops are used, i. e., crops are planted at times 

 calculated to attract the borers and are then cut 

 green and destroyed by fire. In some regions one 

 of the principal items of expenditure in connection 

 with harvesting is that connected with the control 

 of borers. 



More than twenty beetles, several ants, several 

 flies, about thirty butterflies and moths, numerous 

 bugs, hoppers, aphides and scales, and several 

 grasshoppers and crickets attack cane. Mites of 

 various kinds are troublesome. 



In fighting the insect pests various methods are 

 employed. Where hand methods are applicable 



they are used. The use of insecticides is for the 

 most part out of the question, the crop being so 

 extensive and bulky, and impenetrable. The intro- 

 duction of insect and other parasites has been 

 attended with marked success in some instances, 

 and work in this line continues to promise well. 



Stripping is closely related to certain insect 

 pests, as it favors some and hinders others. This 

 is one of the reasons for the great diversity of 

 opinion and practice in connection with stripping. 

 The leaf-hoppers are being fought successfully in 

 Hawaii by the introduction of insect parasites and 

 predaceous insects. 



The underground parts of the cane plant are 

 attacked by a great variety of free-living and 

 parasitic nematodes, and it has been recently 

 shown that their attacks are a potent factor in 

 various root diseases. The attacks of the parasites 

 cause galls. These worms can be combated only 

 by agricultural methods, one of the chief of which 

 is a method of culture that exposes the soil as 

 much as possible to the action of air and sunlight. 



Diseases. — Twenty-five to thirty fungous pests of 

 the cane are known, some of these being the most 

 wide-spread and destructive of all the pests of the 

 crop. Of these, two of the most serious, namely 

 sereh and gumming, are not known to do serious 

 damage in the United States or its possessions. 

 Most of the others are probably as prevalent on 

 American plantations as elsewhere, due regard 

 being had to climate and other local conditions. 

 , The following is a list of the fungous diseases of 

 cane somewhat in the order of their seriousness: 

 Root diseases, rind disease, sereh, pineapple disease, 

 red-rot, top-rot, smut, rust and various leaf and 

 leaf-sheath diseases. 



The nature of the cane crop precludes the use of 

 fungicides except in connection with the rots that 



